



















Class. ..LJ. 3&0E, 

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Copyright >i° J ', g. Cl 

COPWIGHT DEPOSIT. 










LIVES OF GIRLS 
WHO BECAME FAMOUS 


By the Same Author: 

LIVES OF POOR BOYS WHO 
BECAME FAMOUS 

Stirring accounts of the careers of 
George Peabody, Bayard Taylor, James 
Watt, Benjamin Franklin, Peter Cooper, 
Ole Bull, and others in Europe and 
America. 

‘‘The charm of Mrs. Bolton’s books 
lies in the easy, conversational natural¬ 
ness with which the reader is led from 
page to page. Solid information and 
pleasant entertainment are blended en- 
joyably. Young people in hundreds of 
homes will read such books with interest, 
and be the better for them.” 

—The Congregationalist 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO. 
NEW YORK 






© Underwood and Underwood 


JANE ADDAMS 











LIVES OF GIRLS 
WHO BECAME FAMOUS 

BY 

SARAH K. BOLTON 

Author of “Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous’* 

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 




Copyright, 188C, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

Copyright, 1914, 

BY SARAH K. BOLTON 

Copyright, 1923. 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 


• • • 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



-vi 0 l 


PUBLISHERS’ NOTE 


In presenting a new, revised edition of Mrs. Sarah K. 
Bolton’s famous book on “Famous Girls,” it is interesting 
to glance back at editions which have gone before. It 
was first brought out in 1886, as a companion volume to 
“Poor Boys Who Became Famous,” and has had a suc¬ 
cess quite as great. Edition after edition has appeared. 
More than a hundred thousand copies of the two books 
have been sold, and the demand continues steadily year 
by year. 

Who can measure the good that these two books have 
accomplished? How many other ambitious boys and 
girls have been spurred on to high endeavor by these 
stories of what other boys and girls have done? There 
is a satisfaction in publishing such books, which far out¬ 
weighs any monetary consideration. 

“Lives of Girls Who Became Famous” is now entirely 
revised and reset. A few of the subjects, who were 
living when Mrs. Bolton laid down her pen, have since 
passed away. Their biographical sketches have been 
completed. Some new material has been added, includ¬ 
ing: Jenny Lind, Jane Addams, Alice Freeman Palmer, 
Clara Barton, Frances E. Willard, Helen Keller, Anna 
Floward Shaw, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Susan B. An¬ 
thony. There are now twenty-five life stories in all, 
each replete with inspiration for other girl readers. 


m 


PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 


All of us have aspirations. We build aircastles, and 
are probably the happier for the building. However, the 
sooner we learn that life is not a play-day, but a thing of 
earnest activity, the better for us and for those associ¬ 
ated with us. “Energy,” says Goethe, “will do any¬ 
thing that can be done in this world”; and Jean Ingelow 
truly says, that “Work is heaven’s best.” 

If we cannot, like George Eliot, write Adam Bede, we 
can, like Florence Nightingale, visit the poor and the 
prisoner. If we cannot, like Rosa Bonheur, paint a 
“Horse Fair,” and receive ten thousand dollars, we can, 
like Mrs. Stowe and Miss Alcott, do some kind of work 
to lighten the burdens of parents. If poor, with Mary 
Lyon’s persistency and noble purpose, we can accomplish 
almost anything. If rich, we can bless the world in 
thousands of ways, and are untrue to God and ourselves 
if we fail to do it. 

Margaret Fuller said, “All might be superior beings,” 
and doubtless this is true, if all were willing to cultivate 
the mind and beautify the character. 


S. K. B. 



CONTENTS 


Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

. Poet . ... . 

PAGE 

. I 

George Eliot .... 


. Author . 

• 13 

Florence Nightingale . 


. Nurse . 

• 34 

Jean Ingelow .... 


. Poet .... 

• 50 

Jenny Lind .... 


. Singer . 

. 60 

Madame De Stael . 


. Author . 

• 74 

Rosa Bonheur .... 


. Painter . 

. 91 

Harriet Beecher Stowe . 


. Author . 

. IOI 

Helen Hunt Jackson . 


. Author . 

. 114 

Lucretia Mott . 


. Preacher 

. 125 

Mary A. Livermore . 


. Lecturer 

• 139 

Margaret Fuller Ossoli 


\ 

. Journalist . 

. 152 

Maria Mitchell . . 


. Astronomer 

. 167 

Louisa M. Alcott . 


. Author . 

• 179 

Mary Lyon. 


. Educator 

. 191 

Harriet G. Hosmer . 


. Sculptor 

. 204 

Julia Ward Howe . 


. Author . 

• 215 

Jane Addams .... 


. Social Scientist 

. 228 

Alice Freeman Palmer . 


. Educator 

. 240 

Clara Barton .... 


. Nurse . 

. 252 


V 










VI 


CONTENTS 


Susan B. Anthony . 
Anna Howard Shaw . 
Frances E. Willard . 
Elizabeth Blackwell 
Helen Keller . . . 


. Lecturer 

PACK 

. 269 

. Lecturer 

. 279 

. Lecturer 

» 292 

. Physician 

. 304 

. Author . 

. 3 H 



LIVES OF GIRLS WHO 
BECAME FAMOUS 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

Ever since I had received in my girlhood, from my best 
friend, the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in five 
volumes in blue and gold, I had read and re-read the 
pages, till I knew scores by heart. I had longed to see the 
face and home of her whom the English call “Shake¬ 
speare’s daughter,” and whom Edmund Clarence Sted- 
man names “the passion-flower of the century.” 

I shall never forget that beautiful July morning spent 
in the Browning home in London. The poet-wife had 
gone out from it, and lay buried in Florence, but here 
were her books and her pictures. Here was a marble 
bust, the hair clustering about the face, and a smile on the 
lips that showed happiness. Near by was another bust 
of the idolized only child, of whom she wrote in Casa 
Guidi Windows :— 

“The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor; 

Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, 

Not two years old, and let me see thee more! 

It grows along thy amber curls to shine 
Brighter than elsewhere. Now look straight before 
And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine, 

And from thy soul, which fronts the future so 
With unabashed and unabated gaze, 

Teach me to hope for what the Angels know 
When they smile clear as thou dost!” 


V 


2 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

Here was the breakfast-table at which they three had 
often sat together. Close beside it hung a picture of the 
room in Florence, where she lived so many years in a 
wedded bliss as perfect as any known in history. Tears 
gathered in the eyes of Robert Browning, as he pointed 
out her chair, and sofa, and writing-table. 

Of this room in Casa Guidi, Kate Field wrote in the 
Atlantic Monthly, September, 1861: “They who have 
been so favored can never forget the square ante¬ 
room, with its great picture and piano-forte, at which the 
boy Browning passed many an hour; the little dining 
room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions 
of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning; the long 
room filled with plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. 
Browning’s retreat; and, dearest of all, the large drawing¬ 
room, where she always sat. It opens upon a balcony 
filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray 
church of Santa Felice. There was something about this 
room that seemed to make it a proper and especial haunt 
for poets. The dark shadows and subdued light gave it 
a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the tapestry- 
covered walls, and the old pictures of saints that looked 
out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. 
Large bookcases, constructed of specimens of Florentine 
carving selected by Mr. Browning, were brimming over 
with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with 
more gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. 
Dante’s grave profile, a cast of Keats’ face and brow 
taken after death, a pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the 
genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs. Browning’s good 
friend and relative, little paintings of the boy Browning, 
all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand 
musings. But the glory of all, and that which sancti¬ 
fied all, was seated in a low armchair near the door. A 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


3 

small table, strewn with writing materials, books and 
newspapers, was always by her side.” 

Then Mr. Browning, in the London home, showed us 
the room where he wrote, containing his library and hers. 
The books are on simple shelves, choice, and many very 
old and rare. Here are her books, many in Greek and 
Hebrew. In the Greek, I saw her notes on the margin 
in Hebrew, and in the Hebrew she had written her mar¬ 
ginal notes in Greek. Here also are the five volumes of 
her writings, in blue and gold. 

The small table at which she wrote still stands beside 
the larger where her husband composed. His table is 
covered with letters and papers and books; hers stands 
there unused, because it is a constant reminder of 
those companionable years, when they worked together. 
Close by hangs a picture of the “young Florentine,” 
Robert Barrett Browning, now grown to manhood, 
an artist already famed. He has a refined face, as he 
sits in artist garb, before his easel, sketching in a peasant’s 
house. 

The beloved poet who wrote at the little table is en¬ 
deared to all the world. Born in 1809, in the county of 
Durham, the daughter of wealthy parents, she passed her 
early years partly in the country in Herefordshire, and 
partly in the city. That she loved the country with its 
wild flowers and woods, her poem, The Lost Bower, 
plainly shows. 

“Green the land is where my daily 
Steps in jocund childhood played, 

Dimpled close with hill and valley, 

Dappled very close with shade; 

Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from 
glade to glade.” 


4 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


Elizabeth Barrett wrote poems at ten, and when seven¬ 
teen, published an Essay on Mind, and Other Poems. 
The essay was after the manner of Pope, and though 
showing good knowledge of Plato and Bacon, did not find 
favor with the critics. It was dedicated to her father, 
who was proud of a daughter who preferred Latin and 
Greek to the novels of the day. 

Her teacher was the blind Hugh Stuart Boyd, whom 
she praises in her Wine of Cyprus. 

More fond of books than of social life, she was laying 
the necessary foundation for a noble fame. The lives of 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, and Margaret 
Fuller, emphasize the necessity of almost unlimited 
knowledge, if woman would reach lasting fame. A great 
man or woman of letters, without great scholarship, is 
well-nigh an impossible thing. 

Nine years after her first book, Prometheus Bound and 
Miscellaneous Poems was published in 1835. She was 
now twenty-six. A translation from the Greek of 
ZEschylus by a woman caused much comment, but like 
the first book it received severe criticism. Several years 
afterward, when she brought her collected poems before 
the world, she wrote: “One early failure, a translation 
of the Prometheus of /Eschylus, which, though happily 
free of the current of publication, may be remembered 
against me by a few of my personal friends, I have re¬ 
placed here by an entirely new version, made for them 
and my conscience, in expiation of a sin of my youth, 
with the sincerest application of my mature mind.” 
“This latter version,” says Mr. Stedman, “of a most sub¬ 
lime tragedy is more poetical than any other of equal 
correctness, and has the fire and vigor of a master-hand. 
No one has succeeded better than its author in capturing 
with rhymed measures the wilful rushing melody of the 
tragic chorus.” 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


5 


In 1835 Miss Barrett made the acquaintance of Mary 
Russell Mitford, and a life-long friendship resulted. 
Miss Mitford says: “She was certainly one of the most 
interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who 
then saw her said the same. Of a slight delicate figure, 
with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a 
most expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed 
by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look 
of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading 
a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Cheswick, 
that the translator of the Prometheus of JEschylus, the 
author of the Essay on Mind , was old enough to be 
introduced into company, in technical language, was out. 
We met so constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of 
the difference of age, intimacy ripened into friendship, 
and after my return into the country, we corresponded 
freely and frequently, her letters being just what letters 
ought to be,—her own talk put upon paper.” 

The next year Miss Barrett, never robust, broke a 
blood-vessel in the lungs. For a year she was ill, and 
then with her eldest and favorite brother, was carried 
to Torquay to try the effect of a warmer climate. After 
a year spent here, she greatly improved, and seemed likely 
to recover her usual health. 

One beautiful summer morning she went on the bal¬ 
cony to watch her brother and two other young men who 
had gone out for a sail. Having had much experience, 
and understanding the coast, they allowed the boatman 
to return to land. Only a few minutes out, and in plain 
sight, as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, 
and the three friends perished. Their bodies even were 
never recovered. 

The whole town was in mourning. Posters were put 
upon every cliff and public place, offering large rewards 
“for linen cast ashore marked with the initials of the 


6 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the three were of 
the dearest and the best: one, an only son; the other, the 
son of a widow”; but the sea was forever silent. 

The sister, who had seen her brother sink before her 
eyes, was utterly prostrated. She blamed herself for 
his death, because he came to Torquay for her comfort. 
All winter long she heard the sound of waves ringing 
in her ears like the moans of the dying. From this time 
forward she never mentioned her brother’s name, and 
later exacted from Mr. Browning a promise that the sub¬ 
ject should never be broached between them. 

The following year she was removed to London in an 
invalid carriage, journeying twenty miles a day. And 
then for seven years, in a large darkened room, lying 
much of the time upon her couch, and seeing only a few 
most intimate friends, the frail woman lived and wrote. 
Books more than ever became her solace and joy. Miss 
Mitford says, “She read almost every book worth read¬ 
ing, in almost every language, and gave herself heart and 
soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the 
priestess.” When Dr. Barry urged that she read light 
books, she had a small edition of Plato bound so as to 
resemble a novel, and the good man was satisfied. She 
understood her own needs better than he. 

When she was twenty-nine, she published The Sera¬ 
phim and Other Poems. The Seraphim was a reveren¬ 
tial description of two angels watching the Crucifixion. 
Though the critics saw much that was strikingly original, 
they condemned the frequent obscurity of meaning and 
irregularity of rhyme. The next year, The Romaunt of 
the Page and other ballads appeared, and in 1844, when 
she was thirty-five, a complete edition of her poems, 
opening with the Drama of Exile. This was the expul¬ 
sion of Adam and Eve from Eden, the first scene repre¬ 
senting “the outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


7 


with cloud, from the depth of which revolves a sword of 
fire self-moved. Adam and Eve are seen in the distance 
flying along the glare.” 

In one of her prefaces she said: “Poetry has been to 
me as serious a thing as life itself,—and life has been a 
very serious thing; there has been no playing at skittles 
for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the final 
cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. 
I have done my work, so far, as work,—not as mere hand 
and head work, apart from the personal being, but as 
the completest expression of that being to which I could 
attain,—and as work I offer it to the public, feeling its 
shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, be¬ 
cause measured from the height of my aspiration; but 
feeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which 
the work was done should give it some protection from 
the reverent and sincere.” 

One person among the many who had read Miss Bar¬ 
rett’s poems felt their genius, because he had genius in 
his own soul, and that person was Robert Browning. 
That she admired his poetic work was shown in Lady 
Geraldine's Courtship, when Bertram reads to his lady¬ 
love :— 

“Or at times a modern volume,—Wordsworth’s solemn- 
thoughted idyl, 

Howitt’s ballad verse, or Tennyson’s enchanted reverie, 

Or from Browning some Pomegranate, which, if cut deep 
down the middle, 

Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.” 

Mr. Browning determined to meet the unknown singer. 
Years later he told the story to Elizabeth C. Kinney, 
when she had gone with the happy husband and wife on 
a day’s excursion from Florence. She says: “Finding 
that the invalid did not receive strangers, he wrote her a 


8 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


letter, intense with his desire to see her. She reluctantly 
consented to an interview. He flew to her apartment, was 
admitted by the nurse, in whose presence only could he 
see the deity at whose shrine he had long worshipped. 
But the golden opportunity was not to be lost; love be¬ 
came oblivious to any save the presence of the real of 
its ideal. Then and there Robert Browning poured his 
impassioned soul into hers; though his tale of love seemed 
only an enthusiast’s dream. Infirmity had hitherto so 
hedged her about, that she deemed herself forever pro¬ 
tected from all assaults of love. Indeed, she felt only 
injured that a fellow-poet should take advantage, as it 
were, of her indulgence in granting him an interview, 
and requested him to withdraw from her presence, not 
attempting any response to his proposal, which she could 
not believe in earnest. Of course, he withdrew from her 
sight, but not to withdraw the offer of his heart and 
hand; on the contrary, to repeat it by letter, and in such 
wise as to convince her how ‘dead in earnest’ he was. 
Her own heart, touched already when she knew it not, 
was this time fain to listen, be convinced, and over¬ 
come. 

“As a filial daughter, Elizabeth told her father of the 
poet’s love, and of the poet’s love in return, and asked 
a parent’s blessing to crown their happiness. At first he 
was incredulous of the strange story; but when the truth 
flashed on him from the new fire in her eyes, he kindled 
with rage, and forbade her ever seeing or communicat¬ 
ing with her lover again, on the penalty of disinheritance 
and banishment forever from a father’s love. This de¬ 
cision was founded on no dislike for Mr. Browning per¬ 
sonally, or anything in him or his family; it was simply 
arbitrary. But the new love was stronger than the old 
in her,—it conquered.” Mr. Barrett never forgave his 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 






ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


9 

daughter, and died unreconciled, which to her was a 
great grief. 

In 1846 Elizabeth Barrett arose from her sick-bed to 
marry the man of her choice, who took her at once to 
Italy, where she spent fifteen happy years. At once, love 
seemed to infuse new life into the delicate body and re¬ 
new the saddened heart. She was thirty-seven. She 
had wisely waited till she found a person of congenial 
tastes and kindred pursuits. Had she married earlier, 
it is possible that the cares of life might have deprived 
the world of some of her noblest works. 

The marriage was an ideal one. Both had a grand 
purpose in life. Neither individual was merged in the 
other. George S. Hillard, in his Six Months in Italy . 
when he visited the Brownings the year after their mar¬ 
riage, says, “A happier home and a more perfect union 
than theirs it is not easy to imagine; and this complete¬ 
ness arises not only from the rare qualities which each 
possesses, but from their perfect adaptation to each other. 
. . . Nor is she more remarkable for genius and learn¬ 
ing, than for sweetness of temper and purity of spirit. 
It is a privilege to know such beings singly and separately, 
but to see their powers quickened, and their happiness 
rounded, by the sacred tie of marriage, is a cause for 
peculiar and lasting gratitude. A union so complete as 
theirs—in which the mind has nothing to crave nor the 
heart to sigh for—is cordial to behold and soothing to 
remember.” 

“Mr. Browning,” says one who knew him well, “did 
not fear to speak of his wife’s genius, which he did al¬ 
most with awe, losing himself so entirely in her glory 
that one could see that he did not feel worthy to unloose 
her shoe-latchet, much less to call her his own.” 

When mothers teach their daughters to cultivate their 


10 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


minds as did Mrs. Browning, as well as to emulate her 
sweetness of temper, then will men venerate women for 
both mental and moral power. A love that has reverence 
for its foundation knows no change. 

“Mrs. Browning’s conversation was most interesting. 
She never made an insignificant remark. All that she 
said was always worth hearing; a greater compliment 
could not be paid her. She was a most conscientious list¬ 
ener, giving you her mind and heart, as well as her mag¬ 
netic eyes. Persons were never her theme, unless public 
characters were under discussion, or friends were to be 
praised. One never dreamed of frivolities in Mrs. Brown¬ 
ing’s presence, and gossip felt itself out of place. Your¬ 
self, not herself, was always a pleasant subject to her, call¬ 
ing out all her best sympathies in joy, and yet more in 
sorrow. Books and humanity, great deeds, and above all, 
politics, which include all the grand questions of the day, 
were foremost in her thoughts, and therefore oftenest on 
her lips. I speak not of religion, for with her everything 
was religion. 

“Thoughtful in the smallest things for others, she 
seemed to give little thought to herself. The first to see 
merit, she was the last to censure faults, and gave the 
praise that she felt with a generous hand. No one so 
heartily rejoiced at the success of others, no one was 
so modest in her own triumphs. She loved all who of¬ 
fered her affection, and would solace and advise with any. 
Mrs. Browning belonged to no particular country; the 
world was inscribed upon the banner under which she 
fought. Wrong was her enemy; against this she 
wrestled, in whatever part of the globe it was to be 
found.” 

Three years after her marriage her only son was born. 
The Italians ever after called her “the mother of the 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING n 


beautiful child.” And now some of her ablest and 
strongest work was done. Her Casa Guidi Windows ap¬ 
peared in 1851. It is the story of the struggle for Italian 
liberty. In the same volume were published the Por¬ 
tuguese Sonnets, really her own love-life. It would be 
difficult to find anything more beautiful than these. 

“First time he kissed me he but only kissed 
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write, 

And ever since, it grew more clean and white, 

Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list/ 

When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, 

Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
The first, and sought the forehead, and half-missed, 

Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed! 

That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown 
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 

The third upon my lips was folded down 
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, 

I have been proud and said, ‘My love, my own!’ 

• • • • • • • ' •! 

How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways, 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of being and ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day’s 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right, 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears of all my life!—and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.” 


12 


ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


Mrs. Browning’s next great poem, in 1856, was Aurora 
Leigh, a novel in blank verse, ‘‘the most mature,” she 
says in the preface, “of my works, and the one into which 
my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered.” 
Walter Savage Landor said of it: “In many pages there 
is the wild imagination of Shakespeare. I had no idea 
that any one in this age was capable of such poetry.” 

For fifteen years this happy wedded life, with its work 
of brain and hand, had been lived, and now the bond was 
to be severed. In June, 1861, Mrs. Browning took a 
severe cold, and was ill for nearly a week. No one 
thought of danger, though Mr. Browning would not leave 
her bedside. On the night of June 29, toward morning, 
she seemed to be in a sort of ecstasy. She told her hus¬ 
band of her love for him, gave him her blessing, and 
raised herself to die in his arms. “It is beautiful,” were 
her last words as she caught a glimpse of some heavenly 
vision. 

The Italians, who loved her, placed on the doorway of 
Casa Guidi a white marble tablet, with the words:— 

“Here wrote and died E. B. Browning, who, in the 
heart of a woman, united the science of a sage and the 
spirit of a poet, and made with her verse a golden ring 
binding Italy and England. 

“Grateful Florence placed this memorial, 1861.” 


GEORGE ELIOT 


Going to the Exposition at New Orleans, I took for 
reading on the journey, the life of George Eliot, by her 
husband, John Walter Cross, written with great delicacy 
and beauty. An accident delayed us, so that for three 
days I enjoyed this insight into a wonderful life. I 
copied the amazing list of books she had read, and trans¬ 
ferred to my note-book many of her beautiful thoughts. 
To-day I have been reading the book again; a clear, vivid 
picture of a very great woman, whose works, says the 
Spectator, “are the best specimens of powerful, simple 
English, since Shakespeare.” 

What made her a superior woman? Not wealthy 
parentage; not congenial surroundings. She had a gen¬ 
erous, sympathetic heart for a foundation, and on this 
she built a scholarship that even few men can equal. She 
loved science, and philosophy, and language, and mathe¬ 
matics, and grew broad enough to discuss great questions 
and think great thoughts. And yet she was affectionate, 
tender, and gentle. 

Mary Ann Evans was born November 22, 1819, at 
Arbury Farm, a mile from Griff, in Warwickshire, Eng¬ 
land. When four months old the family moved to 
Griff, where the girl lived till she was twenty-one, in a 
two-story, old-fashioned, red brick house, the walls cov¬ 
ered with ivy. Two Norway firs and an old yew-tree 
shaded the lawn. The father, Robert Evans, a man of 
intelligence and good sense, was bred a builder and car¬ 
penter, afterward becoming a land-agent for one of the 
large estates. The mother was a woman of sterling 

character, practical and capable. 

13 


14 


GEORGE ELIOT 


For the three children, Christiana, Isaac, and Mary 
Ann, there was little variety in the commonplace life 
at Griff. Twice a day the coach from Birmingham to 
Stamford passed by the house, and the coachman and 
guard in scarlet were a great diversion. She thus de¬ 
scribes the locality in Felix Holt: “Here were powerful 
men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from 
squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves 
down in the blackened flannel, and sleep through the day¬ 
light, then rise and spend much of their high wages at 
the alehouse with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here 
the pale, eager faces of handloom weavers, men and 
women, haggard from sitting up late at night to finish 
the week’s work, hardly begun till the Wednesday. 
Everywhere the cottages and the small children were 
dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to the 
loom.” 

Mary Ann was an affectionate, sensitive child, fond of 
out-door sports, imitating everything she saw her brother 
do, and early in life feeling in her heart that she was to 
be “somebody.” When but four years old, she would 
seat herself at the piano and play, though she did not 
know one note from another, that the servant might see 
that she was a distinguished person! Her life was a 
happy one, as is shown in her Brother and Sister Son¬ 
net :— 

“But were another childhood’s world my share, 

I would be born a little sister there.” 

At five, the mother being in poor health, the child was 
sent to a boarding-school with her sister, Chrissy, where 
she remained three or four years. The older scholars 
petted her, calling her “little mamma.” At eight she 
went to a larger school, at Nuneaton, where one of the 
teachers, Miss Lewis, became her life-long friend. The 


GEORGE ELIOT 


15 

child had the greatest fondness for reading, her first book, 
a Linnet's Life, being tenderly cared for all her days. 
^Esop’s Fables were read and re-read. At this time a 
neighbor had loaned one of the Waverley novels to the 
older sister, who returned it before Mary Ann had fin¬ 
ished it. Distressed at this break in the story, she began 
to write out as nearly as she could remember, the whole 
volume for herself. Her amazed family re-borrowed the 
book, and the child was happy. The mother sometimes 
protested against the use of so many candles for night 
reading, and rightly feared that her eyes would be spoiled. 

At the next school, at Coventry, Mary Ann so sur¬ 
passed her comrades that they stood in awe of her, but 
managed to overcome this when a basket of dainties came 
in from the country home. In 1836 the excellent mother 
died. Mary Ann wrote to a friend in after life, “I be¬ 
gan at sixteen to be acquainted with the unspeakable 
grief of a last parting, in the death of my mother.” In 
the following spring Chrissy was married, and after a 
good cry with her brother over this breaking up of the 
home circle, Mary Ann took upon herself the household 
duties, and became the care-taker instead of the school¬ 
girl. Although so young she took a leading part in the 
benevolent work of the neighborhood. 

Her love for books increased. She engaged a well- 
known teacher to come from Coventry and give her les¬ 
sons in French, German, and Italian, while another helped 
her in music, of which she was passionately fond. Later, 
she studied Greek, Latin, Spanish, and Hebrew. Shut 
up in the farm-house, hungering for knowledge, she ap¬ 
plied herself with a persistency and earnestness that by- 
and-by were to bear their legitimate fruit. That she felt 
the privation of a collegiate course is undoubted. She 
says in Daniel Deronda: “You may try, but you can 
never imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius 


i6 


GEORGE ELIOT 


in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl.” 

She did not neglect her household duties. One of her 
hands, which were noticeable for their beauty of shape, 
was broader than the other, which, she used to say with 
some pride, was owing to the butter and cheese she had 
made. At twenty she was reading the Life of Wilber - 
force, Josephus’ History of the Jews, Spenser’s Faerie 
Queen, Don Quixote, Milton, Bacon, Mrs. Somerville’s 
Connection of the Physical Sciences, and Wordsworth. 
The latter was always an especial favorite, and his life, 
by Frederick Myers in the Men of Letters series, was one 
of the last books she ever read. 

Already she was learning the illimitableness of knowl¬ 
edge. “For my part,” she says, “I am ready to sit down 
and weep at the impossibility of my understanding or 
barely knowing a fraction of the sum of objects that 
present themselves for our contemplation in books and 
in life.” 

About this time Mr. Evans left the farm, and moved 
to Foleshill, near Coventry. The poor people at Griff 
were very sorry, and said, “We shall never have another 
Mary Ann Evans.” Marian, as she was now called, 
found at Foleshill a few intellectual and companionable 
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bray, both authors, and Miss Hen- 
nell, their sister. 

Through the influence of these friends she gave up 
some of her evangelical views, but she never ceased to be 
a devoted student and lover of the Bible. She was happy 
in her communing with nature. “Delicious autumn,” 
she said. “My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were 
a bird, I would fly about the earth, seeking the successive 
autumns. ... I have been revelling in Nichol’s Architec¬ 
ture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System, 
and have been in imagination winging my flight from 
system to system, from universe to universe.” 


GEORGE ELIOT 


17 


In 1844, when Miss Evans was twenty-five years old, 
she began the translation of Strauss’ Life of Jesus. The 
lady who was to marry Miss Hennell’s brother had par¬ 
tially done the work, and asked Miss Evans to finish it. 
For nearly three years she gave it all the time at her 
command, receiving only one hundred dollars for the 
labor. 

It was a difficult and weary work. “When I can work 
fast,” she said, “I am never weary, nor do I regret either 
that the work has been begun or that I have undertaken it. 
I am only inclined to vow that I will never translate 
again, if I live to correct the sheets for Strauss.” When 
the book was finished, it was declared to be “A faithful, 
elegant, and scholar-like translation . . . word for word, 
thought for thought, and sentence for sentence.” Strauss 
himself was delighted with it. 

The days passed as usual in the quiet home. Now 
she and her father, the latter in failing health, visited the 
Isle of Wight, and saw beautiful Alum Bay, with its 
“high precipice, the strata upheaved perpendicularly in 
rainbow,—like streaks of the brightest maize, violet, pink, 
blue, red, brown, and brilliant white,—worn by the 
weather into fantastic fretwork, the deep blue sky above, 
and the glorious sea below.” Who of us has not felt 
this same delight in looking upon this picture, painted by 
nature ? 

Now Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as other famous 
people, visited the Bray family. Miss Evans writes: 
“I have seen Emerson,—the first man I have ever seen.” 
High praise indeed from our “great, calm soul,” as he 
called Miss Evans. “I am grateful for the Carlyle eulo- 
gium (on Emerson). I have shed some quite delicious 
tears over it. This is a world worth abiding in while 
one man can thus venerate and love another.” 

Each evening she played on the piano to her admiring 


x8 GEORGE ELIOT 

* 

father, and finally, through months of illness, carried him 
down tenderly to the grave. He died May 31, 1849. 

Worn with care, Miss Evans went upon the Continent 
with the Brays, visiting Paris, Milan, the Italian lakes, 
and finally resting for some months at Geneva. As her 
means were limited, she tried to sell some of her books 
at half-price, so that she could have money for music les¬ 
sons, and to attend a course of lectures on experimental 
physics, by the renowned Professor de la Rive. She was 
also carefully reading socialistic themes, Proudhon, Rous¬ 
seau, and others. She wrote to friends: “The days are 
really only two hours long, and I have so many things to 
do that I go to bed every night miserable because I have 
left out something I meant to do. ... I take a dose of 
mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becom¬ 
ing quite soft.” 

On her return to England, she visited the Brays, and 
met Mr. Chapman, the editor of the Westminster Review, 
and Mr. Mackay, upon whose Progress of the Intellect 
she had just written a review. Mr. Chapman must have 
been deeply impressed with the learning and ability of 
Miss Evans, for he offered her the position of assistant 
editor of the magazine,—a most unusual position for a 
woman, since its contributors were Froude, Carlyle, John 
Stuart Mill, and other able men. 

Miss Evans accepted, and went to board with Mr. 
Chapman’s family in London. How different this from 
the quiet life at Foleshill! The best society, that is, 
the greatest in mind, opened wide its doors to her. Her¬ 
bert Spencer, who had just published Social Statics , be¬ 
came one of her best friends. Harriet Martineau came 
often to see her. Grote was very friendly. 

The woman-editor was now thirty-two; her massive 
head covered with brown curls, blue-gray eyes, mobile, 
sympathetic mouth, strong chin, pale face, and soft, low 


GEORGE ELIOT 


i9 


voice, like Dorothea’s in Middlemarch ,—“the voice of a 
soul that has once lived in an ^Eolian harp.” Mr. Bray 
thought that Miss Evans’ head, after that of Napoleon, 
showed the largest development from the brow to ear of 
any person’s recorded. 

She had extraordinary power of expression, and ex¬ 
traordinary psychological powers, but her chief attraction 
was her universal sympathy. “She essentially resembled 
Socrates,” says Mathilde Blind, “in her manner of elicit¬ 
ing whatsoever capacity for thought might be latent in 
the people she came in contact with; were it only a shoe¬ 
maker or day laborer, she would never rest till she had 
found out in what points that particular man differed 
from other men of his class. She always rather educed 
what was in others than impressed herself on them; show¬ 
ing much kindliness of heart in drawing out people who 
were shy. Sympathy was the keynote of her nature, the 
source of her iridescent humor, of her subtle knowledge 
of character, of her dramatic genius.” No person attains 
to permanent fame without sympathy. 

Miss Evans now found her heart and hands full of 
work. Her first article was a review of Carlyle’s Life 
of John Sterling. She was fond of biography. She 
said: “We have often wished that genius would incline 
itself more frequently to the task of the biographer, that 
when some great or good person dies, instead of the 
dreary three-or-five volume compilation of letter and di¬ 
ary and detail, little to the purpose, which two-thirds of 
the public have not the chance, nor the other third the in¬ 
clination, to read, we could have a real ‘life,’ setting forth 
briefly and vividly the man’s inward and outward strug¬ 
gles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear the 
meaning which his experience has for his fellows. 

“A few such lives (chiefly autobiographies) the world 
possesses, and they have, perhaps, been more influential 


20 


GEORGE ELIOT 


on the formation of character than any other kind of 
reading. ... It is a help to read such a life as Margaret 
Fuller’s. How inexpressibly touching that passage from 
her journal, T shall always reign through the intellect, 
but the life! the life! O my God! shall that never be 
sweet?’ I am thankful, as if for myself, that it was 
sweet at last.” 

The great minds which Miss Evans met made life a 
constant joy, though she was frail in health. Now Her¬ 
bert Spencer took her to hear William Tell or the Cre¬ 
ation. She wrote of him: “We have agreed that we 
are not in love with each other, and that there is no 
reason why we should not have as much of each other’s 
society as we like. He is a good, delightful creature, 
and I always feel better for being with him. . . . My 
brightest spot, next to my love of old friends, is the 
deliciously calm, new friendship that Herbert Spencer 
gives me. We see each other every day, and have a de¬ 
lightful camaraderie in everything. But for him my life 
would be desolate enough.” 

There is no telling what this happy friendship might 
have resulted in, if Mr. Spencer had not introduced to 
Miss Evans, George Henry Lewes, a man of brilliant 
conversational powers, who had written a History of 
Philosophy, two novels, Ranthorpe, and Rose, Blanche, 
and Violet, and was a contributor to several reviews. 
Mr. Lewes was a witty and versatile man, a dramatic 
critic, an actor for a short time, unsuccessful as an editor 
of a newspaper, and unsuccessful in his domestic rela¬ 
tions. 

That he loved Miss Evans is not strange; that she 
admired him, while she pitied him and his three sons in 
their broken home-life, is perhaps not strange. At first 
she did not like him, nor did Margaret Fuller, but Miss 
Evans says: “Mr. Lewes is kind and attentive, and has 


GEORGE ELIOT 


21 


quite won my regard, after having had a good deal of my 
vituperation. Like a few other people in the world, he 
is much better than he seems. A man of heart and con¬ 
science wearing a mask of flippancy.” 

Miss Evans tired of her hard work, as who does not 
in this working world? “I am bothered to death,” she 
writes, “with article-reading and scrap-work of all sorts: 
it is clear my poor head will never produce anything 
under these circumstances; but I am patient . ... I had 
a long call from George Combe yesterday. lie says he 
thinks the Westminster under my management the most 
important means of enlightenment of a literary nature in 
existence; the Edinburgh, under Jeffrey, nothing to it, 
etc. I wish / thought so too.” 

Sick with continued headaches, she went up to the 
English lakes to visit Miss Martineau. The coach, at 
half-past six in the evening, stopped at “The Knoll,” 
and a beaming face came to welcome her. During the 
evening, she says, “Miss Martineau came behind me, put 
her hands round me, and kissed me in the prettiest way, 
telling me she was so glad she had got me here.” 

Meantime Miss Evans was writing learned and valu¬ 
able articles on Taxation, Woman in France, Evangelical 
Teaching, etc. She received five hundred dollars yearly 
from her father’s estate, but she lived simply, that she 
might spend much of this for poor relations. 

In 1854 she resigned her position on the Westminster, 
and went with Mr. Lewes to Germany, forming a union 
which thousands who love her must regard as the great 
mistake of a very great life. 

Mr. Lewes was collecting materials for his Life of 
Goethe. This took them to Goethe’s house at Weimar. 
“By the side of the bed,” she says, “stands a stuffed 
chair where he used to sit and read while he drank his 
coffee in the morning. It was not until very late in his 


22 


GEORGE ELIOT 


life that he adopted the luxury of an armchair. From the 
other side of the study one enters the library, which is 
fitted up in a very make-shift fashion, with rough deal 
shelves, and bits of paper, with Philosophy, History, etc., 
written on them, to mark the classification of the books. 
Among such memorials one breathes deeply, and the 
tears rush to one’s eyes.’’ 

George Eliot met Liszt, and “for the first time in her 
life beheld real inspiration,—for the first time heard the 
true tones of the piano.” Rauch, the great sculptor, 
called upon them, and “won our hearts by his beautiful 
person and the benignant and intelligent charm of his 
conversation.” 

Both writers were hard at work. George Eliot was 
writing an article on Weimar for Fraser, on Camming 
for Westminster, and translating Spinoza’s Ethics . No 
name was signed to these productions, as it would not do 
to have it known that a woman wrote them. The educa¬ 
tion of most women was so meagre that the articles would 
have been considered of little value. Happily our pres¬ 
ent-day colleges are changing this estimate of the sex. 
Women do not like to be regarded as inferior; then they 
must educate themselves as thoroughly as the best men 
are educated. 

Mr. Lewes was not well. “This is a terrible trial 
to us poor scribblers,” she writes, “to whom health is 
money, as well as all other things worth having.” They 
had but one sitting-room between them, and the scratch¬ 
ing of another pen so affected her nerves, as to drive her 
nearly wild. Pecuniarily, life was a harder struggle than 
ever, for there were four more mouths to be fed,—Mr. 
Lewes’ three sons and their mother. 

“Our life is intensely occupied, and the days are far 
too short,” she writes. They were reading in every spare 
moment, twelve plays of Shakespeare, Goethe’s works. 


GEORGE ELIOT 


23 


Wilhelm Meister, Gotz von Berlichingen, Hermann and 
Dorothea, Iphigenia, Wander jahre, Italianische Reise, 
and others; Heine’s poems; Lessing’s Loacoon and Na¬ 
than the Wise; Macaulay’s History of England; Moore’s 
Life of Sheridan; Brougham’s Lives of Men of Letters: 
White’s History of Selborne; Whewell’s History of In¬ 
ductive Sciences; Boswell; Carpenter’s Comparative 
Physiology; Jones’ Animal Kingdom; Alison’s History 
of Europe; Kahnis’ History of German Protestantism, 
Schrader’s German Mythology; Kingsley’s Greek He¬ 
roes; and the Iliad and Odyssey in the original. She says, 
“If you want delightful reading, get Lowell’s My Study 
Windows, and read the essays called My Garden Ac¬ 
quaintances and Winter No wonder they were busy. 

On their return from Germany they went to the sea¬ 
shore, that Mr. Lewes might perfect his Sea-side Studies. 
George Eliot entered heartily into the work. “We are 
immensely excited,” she says, “by the discovery of this 
little red mesembryanthemum. It was a crescendo of 
delight when he found a ‘strawberry,’ and a fortissimo 
when I, for the first time, saw the pale, fawn-colored 
tentacles of an Anthea cereus viciously waving like little 
serpents in a low-tide pool.” They read here Gosse’s 
Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, Edward’s Zoology, 
Harvey’s sea-side book, and other scientific works. 

And now at thirty-seven George Eliot was to begin 
her creative work. Mr. Lewes had often said to her, 
“You have wit, description, and philosophy—those go a 
good way towards the production of a novel.” “It had 
always been a vague dream of mine,” she says, “that 
sometime or other I might write a novel . . . but I never 
went further toward the actual writing than an intro¬ 
ductory chapter, describing a Staffordshire village, and 
the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years 
passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write 


24 


GEORGE ELIOT 


a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my 
future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic 
power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt I 
should be at my ease in the descriptive parts.” 

After she had written a portion of Amos Barton in 
her Scenes of Clerical Life, she read it to Mr. Lewes, 
who told her that now he was sure she could write good 
dialogue, but not as yet sure about her pathos. One 
evening, in his absence, she wrote the scene describing 
Milly’s death, and read it to Mr. Lewes, on his return. 
“We both cried over it,” she says, “and then he came up 
to me and kissed me, saying, ‘I think your pathos is better 
than your funk ” 

Mr. Lewes sent the story to Blackwood, with the signa¬ 
ture of “George Eliot,”—the first name chosen because 
it was his own name, and the last because it pleased her 
fancy. Mr. Lewes wrote that this story by a friend of 
his, showed, according to his judgment, “such humor, 
pathos, vivid presentation, and nice observation as have 
not been exhibited, in this style, since the Vicar of Wake¬ 
field.” 

Mr. John Blackwood accepted the story, but made some 
comments which discouraged the author from trying an¬ 
other. Mr. Lewes wrote him the effects of his words, 
which he hastened to withdraw, as there was so much to 
be said in praise, that he really desired more stories from 
the same pen, and sent her a check for two hundred and 
fifty dollars. 

This was evidently soothing, as Mr. Gil fil’s Love Story 
and Janet's Repentance were at once written. Much in¬ 
terest began to be expressed about the author. Some 
said Bulwer wrote the sketches. Thackeray praised 
them, and Arthur Helps said, “He is a great writer.” 
Copies of the stories bound together, with the title Scenes 


GEORGE ELIOT 


25 


of Clerical Life, were sent to Froude, Dickens, Thackeray, 
lennyson, Ruskin, and Faraday. Dickens praised the 
humor and the pathos, and thought the author was a 
woman. 

Jane Welch Carlyle thought it “a human book, written 
out of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain 
of an author, full of tenderness and pathos, without a 
scrap of sentimentality, of sense without dogmatism, of 
earnestness without twaddle—a book that makes one feel 
friends at once and for always with the man or woman 
who wrote it.” She guessed the author was “a man of 
middle age, with a wife, from whom he has got those beau¬ 
tiful feminine touches in his book, a good many children, 
and a dog that he has as much fondness for as I have for 
my little Nero.’’ 

Mr. Lewes was delighted, and said, “Her fame is be¬ 
ginning.” George Eliot was growing happier, for her 
nature had been somewhat despondent. She used to say, 
“Expecting disappointments is the only form of hope 
with which I am familiar.” She said, “I feel a deep 
satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that 
will perhaps remain, like a primrose-root in the hedge¬ 
row, and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to 
come.” “ ‘Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails’ 
is my gospel,” she would say. “Writing is part of my 
religion, and I can write no word that is not prompted 
from within. At the same time I believe that almost all 
the best books in the world have been written with the 
hope of getting money for them.” 

“My life has deepened unspeakably during the last 
year: I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual 
enjoyment, a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the 
past, a more solemn desire to be faithful to coming 
duties.” 


2 6 


GEORGE ELIOT 


For Scenes of Clerical Life she received six hundred 
dollars for the first edition, and much more after her 
other books appeared. 

And now another work, a longer one, was growing in 
her mind, Adam Bede, the germ of which, she says, was 
an anecdote told her by her aunt, Elizabeth Evans, the 
Dinah Morris of the book. A very ignorant girl had 
murdered her child, and refused to confess it. Mrs. 
Evans, who was a Methodist preacher, stayed with her 
all night, praying with her, and at last she burst into tears 
and confessed her crime. Mrs. Evans went with her in 
the cart to the place of execution, and ministered to the 
unhappy girl till death came. 

When the first pages of Adam Bede were shown to 
Mr. Blackwood, he said, “That will do.” George Eliot 
and Mr. Lewes went to Munich, Dresden, and Vienna 
for rest and change, and she prepared much of the book 
in this time. When it was finished, she wrote on the 
manuscript, Jubilate . “To my dear husband, George 
Henry Lewes, I give the MS. of a work which would 
never have been written but for the happiness which his 
love has conferred on my life.” 

For this novel she received four thousand dollars for 
the copyright for four years. Fame had actually come. 
All the literary world were talking about it. John Mur¬ 
ray said there had never been such a book. Charles 
Reade said, putting his finger on Lisbeth’s account of 
her coming home with her husband from their marriage, 
“the finest thing since Shakespeare.” A workingman 
wrote: “Forgive me, dear sir, my boldness in asking 
you to give us a cheap edition. You would confer on us 
a great boon. I can get plenty of trash for a few pence, 
but I am sick of it.” Mr. Charles Buxton said, in the 
House of Commons: “As the farmer’s wife says in Adam 
Bede, Tt wants to be hatched over again and hatched dif- 


GEORGE ELIOT 


27 

ferent.’ ” This of course greatly helped to popularize the 
book. 

To George Eliot all this was cause for the deepest grati¬ 
tude. They were able now to rent a home at Wand worth, 
and move to it at once. The poverty and the drudgery 
of life seemed over. She said: “I sing my magnificat in 
a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; 
but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, 
have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph 
that are talked of as the accompaniments of success. I 
often think of my dreams when I was four or five and 
twenty. I thought then how happy fame would make 
me. ... I am assured now that Adam Bede was worth 
writing,—worth living through those long years to write. 
But now' it seems impossible that I shall ever write any¬ 
thing so good and true again.” Up to this time the 
world did not know who George Eliot was; but as a 
man by the name of Liggins laid claim to the authorship, 
and tried to borrow money for his needs because Black¬ 
wood would not pay him, the real name of the author had 
to be divulged. 

Five thousand copies of Adam Bede were sold the first 
two weeks, and sixteen thousand the first year. So ex¬ 
cellent was the sale that Mr. Blackwood sent her four 
thousand dollars in addition to the first four. The work 
was soon translated into French, German, and Hungarian. 
Mr. Lewes’ Physiology of Common Life was now pub¬ 
lished, but it brought little pecuniary return. 

The reading was carried on as usual by the two stu¬ 
dents. The Life of George Stephenson; the Electra of 
Sophocles; the Agamemnon of .Uschylus, Harriet Marti- 
neau’s British Empire in India; and History of the Thirty 
Years’ Peace; Beranger’s Modern Painters, containing 
some of the finest writing of the age; Overbech on Greek 
art; Anna Mary Howitt’s book on Munich; Carlyle’s Life 


28 


GEORGE ELIOT 


of Frederick the Great; Darwin’s Origin of Species; Em¬ 
erson’s Man the Reformer, “which comes to me with fresh 
beauty and meaning”; Buckle’s History of Civilization; 
Plato and Aristotle. 

An American publisher now offered her six thousand 
dollars for a book, but she was obliged to decline, for 
she was writing the Mill on the Floss, in i860, for which 
Blackwood gave her ten thousand dollars for the first edi¬ 
tion of four thousand copies, and Harper & Brothers fif¬ 
teen hundred dollars for using it also. Tauchnitz paid her 
five hundred for the German reprint. 

She said: “I am grateful and yet rather sad to have 
finished; sad that I shall live with my people on the banks 
of the Floss no longer. But it is time that I should go, 
and absorb some new life and gather fresh ideas.” They 
went at once to Italy, where they spent several months 
in Florence, Venice, and Rome. 

In the former city she made her studies for her great 
novel, Romola. She read Sismondi’s History of the Ital¬ 
ian Republics, Tenneman’s History of Philosophy, T„ A. 
Trollope’s Beata, Hallam on the Study of Roman Law in 
the Middle Ages, Gibbon on the Revival of Greek Learn¬ 
ing, Burlamachi’s Life of Savonarola; also Villari’s life 
of the great preacher, Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred and Legend¬ 
ary Art, Machiavelli’s works, Petrarch’s Letters, Casa 
Guidi Windows, Buhle’s History of Modern Philosophy, 
Story’s Roba di Roma, Liddell’s Rome, Gibbon, Mosheim, 
and one might almost say the whole range of Italian 
literature in the original. Of Mommsen’s History of 
Rome she said, “It is so fine that I count all minds grace¬ 
less who read it without the deepest stirrings.” 

The study necessary to make one familiar with fifteenth 
century times was almost limitless. No wonder she told 
Mr. Cross, years afterward, “I began Romola a young 


GEORGE ELIOT 


29 


woman, I finished it an old woman”; but that, with 
Adam Bede and Middle march, will be her monument. 
“What courage and patience,” she says, “are wanted for 
every life that aims to produce anything!” “In author¬ 
ship I hold carelessness to be a mortal sin.” “I took 
unspeakable pains in preparing to write Rornola ” 

For this one book, on which she spent a year and a 
half, Cornhill Magazine paid her the small fortune of 
thirty-five thousand dollars. She purchased a pleasant 
home, “The Priory,” Regent’s Park, where she made her 
friends welcome, though she never made calls upon any, 
for lack of time. She had found, like Victor Hugo, that 
time is a very precious thing for those who wish to suc¬ 
ceed in life. Browning, Huxley, and Herbert Spencer 
often came to dine. 

Says Mr. Cross, in his admirable life: “The entertain¬ 
ment was frequently varied by music when any good per¬ 
former happened to be present. I think, however, that 
the majority of visitors delighted chiefly to come for the 
chance of a few words with George Eliot alone. When 
the drawing-room door of the Priory opened, a first 
glance revealed her always in the same low arm-chair on 
the left-hand side of the fire. On entering, a visitor’s eye 
was at once arrested by the massive head. The abundant 
hair, streaked with gray now, was draped with lace, ar¬ 
ranged mantilla fashion, coming to a point at the top of 
the forehead. If she were engaged in conversation, her 
body was usually bent forward with eager, anxious de¬ 
sire to get as close as possible to the person with whom she 
talked. She had a great dislike to raising her voice, and 
often became so wholly absorbed in conversation that the 
announcement of an in-coming visitor failed to attract 
her attention; but the moment the eyes were lifted up, and 
recognized a friend, they smiled a rare welcome,—sincere. 


30 


GEORGE ELIOT 


cordial, grave,—a welcome that was felt to come straight 
from the heart, not graduated according to any social 
distinction.” 

After much reading of Fawcett, Mill, and other writ¬ 
ers on political economy, Felix Holt was written, in 1866, 
and for this she received from Blackwood twenty-five 
thousand dollars. 

Very much worn with her work, though Mr. Lewes 
relieved her in every way possible, by writing letters and 
looking over all criticisms of her books, which she never 
read, she was obliged to go to Germany for rest. 

In 1868 she published her long poem, The Spanish 
Gypsy, reading Spanish literature carefully, and finally 
passing some time in Spain, that she might be the better 
able to make a lasting work. Had she given her life to 
poetry, doubtless she would have been a great poet. 

Silas Marner, written before Romola, in 1861, had 
been well received, and Middlemarcli, in 1872, made a 
great sensation. It was translated into several languages. 
George Bancroft wrote her from Berlin that everybody 
was reading it. For this she received a much larger sum 
than the thirty-five thousand which she was paid for 
Romola. 

A home was now purchased in Surrey with eight or 
nine acres of pleasure grounds, for George Eliot had 
always longed for trees and flowers about her house. 
‘‘Sunlight and sweet air,” she said, “make a new crea¬ 
ture of me.” Daniel Deronda followed in 1876, for 
which, it is said, she read nearly a thousand volumes. 
Whether this be true or not, the list of books given in 
her life, of her reading in these later years, is as astonish¬ 
ing as it is helpful for any who desire real knowledge. 

At Witley, in Surrey, they lived a quiet life, seeing 
only a few friends like the Tennysons, the Du Mauriers, 
and Sir Henry and Lady Holland. Both were growing 


GEORGE ELIOT 


3i 

older, and Mr. Lewes was in very poor health. Finally, 
after ten days’ illness, he died, November 28, 1878. 

To George Eliot this loss was immeasurable. She 
needed his help and his affection. She said, “I like not 
only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved,” 
and he had idolized her. He said: “I owe Spencer a 
debt of gratitude. It was through him that I learned to 
know Marian,—to know her was to love her, and since 
then, my life has been a new birth. To her I owe all 
my prosperity and all my happiness. God bless her!” 

Mr. John Walter Cross, for some time a wealthy banker 
in New York, had long been a friend of the family, and 
though many years younger than George Eliot, became 
her helper in these days of need. A George Henry Lewes 
studentship, of the value of one thousand dollars yearly, 
was to be given to Cambridge for some worthy student 
of either sex, in memory of the man she had loved. “1 
want to live a little time that I may do certain things for 
his sake,” she said. She grew despondent, and the Cross 
family used every means to win her away from her sor¬ 
row. 

Mr. Cross’ mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, 
had also died, and the loneliness of both made their com¬ 
panionship more comforting. They read Dante together 
in the original, and gradually the younger man found 
that his heart was deeply interested. It was the higher 
kind of love, the honor of mind for mind and soul for 
soul. 

“I shall be,” she said, “a better, more loving creature 
than I could have been in solitude. To be constantly, 
lovingly grateful for this gift of a perfect love is the best 
illumination of one’s mind to all the possible good there 
may be in store for man on this troublous little planet.” 

Mr. Cross and George Eliot were married, May 6, 
1880, a year and a half after Mr. Lewes’ death, his son 


32 


GEORGE ELIOT 


Charles giving her away, and went at once to Italy. She 
w r rote: “Marriage has seemed to restore me to my old 

self.To feel daily the loveliness of a nature close 

to me, and to feel grateful for it, is the fountain of ten¬ 
derness and strength to endure.” Having passed through 
a severe illness, she wrote to a friend: “I have been cared 
for by something much better than angelic tender¬ 
ness. ... If it is any good for me that my life has 
been prolonged till now, I believe it is owing to this mi¬ 
raculous affection that has chosen to watch over me.” 

She did not forget Mr. Lewes. In looking upon the 
Grande Chartreuse, she said, “I would still give up my 
own life willingly, if he could have the happiness instead 
of me.” 

On their return to London, they made their winter 
home at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, a plain brick house. 
The days were gliding by happily. George Eliot was in¬ 
terested as ever in all great subjects, giving five hundred 
dollars for woman’s higher education at Girton College, 
and helping many a struggling author, or providing for 
some poor friend of early times who was proud to be re¬ 
membered. 

She and Mr. Cross began their reading for the day with 
the Bible, she especially enjoying Isaiah, Jeremiah, and 
St. Paul’s Epistles. Then they read Max Muller’s works, 
Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, and whatever was best in 
English, French, and German literature. Milton she 
called her demigod. Her husband says she had “a limit¬ 
less persistency in application.” Her health was better, 
and she gave promise of doing more great work. When 
urged to write her autobiography, she said, half sighing 
and half smiling: “The only thing I should care much to 
dwell on would be the absolute despair I suffered from, 
of ever being able to achieve anything. No one could 


GEORGE ELIOT 


33 

ever have felt greater despair, and a knowledge of this 
might be a help to some other struggler.” 

Friday afternoon, December 17, she went to see Aga¬ 
memnon performed in Greek by Oxford students, and the 
next afternoon to a concert at St. James Hall. She took 
cold, and on Monday was treated for sore throat. On 
Wednesday evening the doctors came, and she whispered 
to her husband, “Tell them I have great pain in the left 
side.” This was the last word. She died with every 
faculty bright, and her heart responsive to all noble things. 

She loved knowledge to the end. She said, “My con¬ 
stant groan is that I must leave so much of the greatest 
writing which the centuries have sifted for me, unread 
for want of time.” 

She had the broadest charity for those whose views dif¬ 
fered from hers. She said, “The best lesson of tolerance 
we have to learn, is to tolerate intolerance.” She hoped 
for and “looked forward to the time when the impulse to 
help our fellows shall be as immediate and irresistible 
as that which I feel to grasp something firm if I am fall- 

• ) y 

in g. 

Her grave in Highgate Cemetery, London is marked 
by a gray granite shaft, about twenty-five feet high, with 
these beautiful words from her great poem:— 

“O may I join the choir invisible, 

Of these immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence.” 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


One of the most interesting places in the whole of Lon¬ 
don is St. Thomas’ Hospital an immense four-story 
structure of brick with stone trimmings. Here is the 
Nightingale Training School for nurses, established 
through the gift to Miss Nightingale of $250,000 by the 
government for her wonderful work in the Crimean War. 
She would not take a cent for herself, but was glad to have 
this institution opened, that girls through such training 
might become valuable to the world as nurses, as she had 
been. 

Here is the “Nightingale Home.” The dining-room, 
with its three long tables, is an inviting apartment. The 
colors of wall and ceiling are in red and light shades. 
Here is a Swiss clock presented by the Grand Duchess 
of Baden; here a harpsichord, also a gift. Here is the 
marble face and figure I had come especially to see, that 
of lovely Florence Nightingale. It is a face full of sweet¬ 
ness and refinement, having withal an earnest look, as 
though life were well worth living. 

What better work than to direct these girls how to be 
useful? Some are here from the highest social circles. 
The “probationers,” or nurse pupils, must remain three 
years before they can become Protestant “sisters.” Each 
ward is in charge of a sister; now it is Leopold, because 
the ward bears that name; and now Victoria in respect 
to the Queen, who opened the institution. 

The sisters look sunny and healthy, though they work 
hard. They have regular hours for being off duty, and 
exercise in the open air. The patients tell me how “home- 

34 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


35 


like it seems to have women in the wards, and what a 
comfort it is in their agony, to be handled by their care¬ 
ful hands.” Here are four hundred persons in all phases 
of suffering, in neat, cheerful wards, brightened by pots 
of flowers, and the faces of kind, devoted women. 

And who was this woman to whom the government of 
Great Britain felt that it owed so much, and whom the 
whole world delighted to honor? 

Florence Nightingale, born in 1820, in the beautiful 
Italian city of that name, was the younger of two daugh¬ 
ters of William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy land-owner, 
who inherited both the name and fortune of his grand¬ 
uncle, Peter Nightingale. The mother was the daughter 
of the eminent philanthropist and member of Parliament, 
William Smith. 

Most of Miss Nightingale’s life was spent on their beau¬ 
tiful estate, Lea Hurst, in Derbyshire, a happy home in 
the midst of picturesque scenery. In her youth her father 
instructed her carefully in the classics and higher mathe¬ 
matics ; a few years later, partly through extensive travel, 
she became proficient in French, German, and Italian. 

Rich, pretty, and well-educated, what was there more 
that she could wish for? Her heart, however, did not 
turn toward a fashionable life. Very early she began 
to visit the poor and the sick near Lea Hurst and her 
father’s other estate at Embly Park, Hampshire. Per¬ 
haps the mantle of the mother’s father had fallen upon 
the young girl. 

She had also the greatest tenderness toward dumb ani¬ 
mals, and never could bear to see them injured. Miss 
Alldridge, in an interesting sketch of Miss Nightingale, 
quotes the following story from Little Folks :— 

“Some years ago, when the celebrated Florence Night¬ 
ingale was a little girl, living at her father’s home, a large 
old Elizabethan house, with great woods about it, in 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


3 6 

Hampshire, there was one thing that struck everybody who 
knew her. It was that she seemed to be always thinking 
what she could do to please or help any one who needed 
either help or comfort. She was very fond, too, of ani¬ 
mals, and she was so gentle in her way, that even the shyest 
of them would come quite close to her, and pick up what¬ 
ever she flung down for them to eat. 

“There was, in the garden behind the house, a long 
walk with trees on each side, the abode of many squirrels; 
and when Florence came down the walk, dropping nuts 
as she went along, the squirrels would run down the 
trunks of their trees, and, hardly waiting until she passed 
by, would pick up the prize and dart away, with their 
little bushy tails curled over their backs, and their black 
eyes looking about as if terrified at the least noise, though 
they did not seem to be afraid of Florence. 

“Then there was an old gray pony named Peggy, past 
work, living in a paddock, with nothing to do all day 
long but to amuse herself. Whenever Florence appeared 
at the gate, Peggy would come trotting up and put her 
nose into the dress pocket of her little mistress, and pick 
it of the apple or the roll of bread that she knew she would 
always find there, for this was a trick Florence had taught 
the pony. Florence was fond of riding, and her father’s 
old friend, the clergyman of the parish, used often to 
come and take her for a ride with him when he went to 
the farm cottages at a distance. He was a good man and 
very kind to the poor. 

“As he had studied medicine when a young man, he was 
able to tell the people what would do them good when they 
were ill, or had met with an accident. Little Florence 
took great delight in helping to nurse those who were ill; 
and whenever she went on these long rides, she had a small 
basket fastened to her saddle, filled with something nice 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


37 

which she saved from her breakfast or dinner, or carried 
for her mother, who was very good to the poor. 

“There lived in one of two or three solitary cottages 
in the wood an old shepherd of her father’s named Roger, 
who had a favorite sheep-dog called Cap. Roger had 
neither wife nor child, and Cap lived with him and 
kept him company at night after he had penned his 
flock. Cap was a very sensible dog; indeed, people 
used to say he could do everything but speak. He kept 
the sheep in wonderfully good order, and thus saved his 
master a great deal of trouble. One day, as Florence and 
her old friend were out for a ride, they came to a field 
where they found the shepherd giving his sheep their night 
feed; but he was without the dog, and the sheep knew it, 
for they were scampering in every direction. Florence 
and her friend noticed that the old shepherd looked very 
sad, and they stopped to ask what was the matter, and 
what had become of his dog. 

“ ‘Oh,’ said Roger, ‘Cap will never be of any more 
use to me; I’ll have to hang him, poor fellow, as soon as 
I go home to-night.’ 

“ ‘Hang him!’ said Florence. ‘Oh, Roger, how wicked 
of you! What has dear old Cap done?’ 

“ ‘He has done nothing,’ replied Roger; ‘but he will 
never be of any more use to me, and I cannot afford to 
keep him for nothing; one of the mischievous school-boys 
throwed a stone at him yesterday, and broke one of his 
legs.’ And the old shepherd’s eyes filled with tears, which 
he wiped away with his shirt-sleeve; then he drove his 
spade deep in the ground to hide what he felt, for he did 
not like to be seen crying. 

“ ‘Poor Cap!’ he sighed; ‘he was as knowing almost 
as a human being.’ 

“ ‘But are you sure his leg is broken ?’ asked Florence. 


38 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


“ 'Oh, yes, miss, it is broken safe enough; he has not 
put his foot to the ground since.’ 

"Florence and her friend rode on without saying any¬ 
thing more to Roger. 

“ ‘We will go and see poor Cap/ said the vicar; ‘I don’t 
believe the leg is really broken. It would take a big stone 
and a hard blow to break the leg of a big dog like Cap.’ 

“ ‘Oh, if you could but cure him, how glad Roger would 
be!’ replied Florence. 

"They soon reached the shepherd’s cottage, but the 
door was fastened; and when they moved the latch, such 
a furious barking was heard that they drew back, startled. 
However, a little boy came out of the next cottage, and 
asked if they wanted to go in, as Roger had left the key 
with his mother. So the key was got, and the door 
opened; and there on the bare brick floor lay the dog, his 
hair dishevelled, and his eyes sparkling with anger at the 
intruders. But when he saw the little boy he grew peace¬ 
ful, and when he looked at Florence, and heard her call 
him ‘poor Cap/ he began to wag his tail; and then 
crept from under the table, and lay down at her feet. She 
took hold of one of his paws, patted his old rough head, 
and talked to him, whilst her friend examined the injured 
leg. It was dreadfully swollen, and hurt very much to 
have it examined; but the dog knew it was meant kindly, 
and though he moaned and winced with pain, he licked 
the hands that were hurting him. 

“ ‘It’s only a bad bruise; no bones are broken/ said her 
old friend; ‘rest is all Cap needs; he will soon be well 
again.’ 

“ ‘I am so glad,’ said Florence; ‘but can we do nothing 
for him? he seems in such pain.’ 

“ ‘There is one thing that would ease the pain and 
heal the leg all the sooner, and that is plenty of hot water 
to foment the part.’ 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


39 


“Florence struck a light with the tinder-box, and lighted 
the fire, which was already laid. She then set off to the 
other cottage to get something to bathe the leg with. She 
found an old flannel petticoat hanging up to dry, and 
this she carried off, and tore up into slips, which she 
wrung out in warm water, and laid them tenderly on 
Cap’s swollen leg. It was not long before the poor dog 
felt the benefit of the application, and he looked grateful, 
wagging his little stump of a tail in thanks. On their 
way home they met the shepherd coming slowly along, 
with a piece of rope in his hand. 

“ 'Oh, Roger,’ cried Florence, 'you are not to hang poor 
old Cap; his leg is not broken at all/ 

“ ‘No, he will serve you yet,’ said the vicar. 

“ 'Well, I be main glad to hear it,’ said the shepherd, 
'and many thanks to you for going to see him.’ 

“On the next morning Florence was up early and the 
first thing she did was to take two flannel petticoats to 
give to the poor woman whose skirt she had torn up to 
bathe Cap. Then she went to the dog, and was delighted 
to find the swelling of his leg much less. She bathed 
it again, and Cap was as grateful as before. 

“Two or three days afterwards Florence and her friend 
were riding together, when they came up to Roger and his 
sheep. This time Cap was watching the sheep, though he 
was lying quite still, and pretending to be asleep. When 
he heard the voice of Florence speaking to his master, 
who was portioning out the usual food, his tail wagged 
and his eyes sparkled, but he did not get up, for he was 
on duty. The shepherd stopped his work, and as he 
glanced at the dog with a merry laugh, said, ‘Do look at 
the dog, Miss; he be so pleased to hear your voice.’ Cap’s 
tail went faster and faster. 'I be glad,’ continued the old 
man, ‘I did not hang him. I be greatly obliged to you, 
Miss, and the vicar, for what you did. But for you I 


40 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


would have hanged the best dog I ever had in my life/ 

A girl who was made so happy in saving the life of 
an animal would naturally be interested to save human 
beings. Occasionally her family passed a season in Lon¬ 
don, and here, instead of giving much time to concerts or 
parties, she would visit hospitals and benevolent institu¬ 
tions. When the family travelled in Egypt, she attended 
several sick Arabs, who recovered under her hands. They 
doubtless thought the English girl was a saint sent down 
from heaven. 

The more she felt drawn toward the sick, the more she 
felt the need of study, and the more she saw the work 
that refined women could do in the hospitals. The Sisters 
of Charity were standing by sick-beds; why could there 
not be Protestant sisters? When they travelled in Ger¬ 
many, France, and Italy, she visited infirmaries, asylums, 
and hospitals, carefully noting the treatment given in each. 

Finally she determined to spend some months at Kaiser- 
werth, near Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, in Pastor Fliedner’s 
great Lutheran hospital. He had been a poor clergyman, 
the leader of a scanty flock, whose church was badly in 
debt. A man of much enterprise and warm heart, he 
could not see his work fail for lack of means; so he set 
out among the provinces, to tell the needs of his little 
parish. He collected funds, learned much about the pov¬ 
erty and ignorance of cities, preached in some of the pris¬ 
ons, because interested in criminals, and went back to his 
loyal people. 

But so poor were they that they could not meet the 
yearly expenses, so he determined to raise an endowment 
fund. He visited Holland and Great Britain, and secured 
the needed money. 

In England, in 1832, he became acquainted with Eliza¬ 
beth Fry. How one good life influences another to the 



FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 













FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


4i 


end of time! When he went back to Germany his heart 
was agk w with a desire to help humanity. 

He at once opened an asylum for discharged prison- 
women. He saw how almost impossible it was for those 
who had been in prison to obtain situations. Then he 
opened a school for the children of such as worked in 
factories, for he realized how unfit for citizenship are 
those who grow up in ignorance. He did not have much 
money, but he seemed able to obtain what he really needed. 
Then he opened a hospital; a home for insane women; a 
home of rest for his nurses, or for those who needed a 
place to live after their work was done. Soon the “Dea¬ 
conesses” at Kaiserwerth became known the country over. 
Among the wildest Norwegian mountains we met some of 
these Kaiserwerth nurses, refined, educated ladies, getting 
in summer a new lease of life for their noble labors. 

This Protestant sisterhood grew to some seven 
hundred sisters, at about two hundred stations, the annual 
expense being about $150,000. What a grand work for 
one man, with no* money, the pastor of a very humble 
church! 

Into this work of Pastor Fliedner, Florence Nightingale 
heartily entered. Was it strange taste for a pretty and 
wealthy young woman, whose life had been one of sun¬ 
shine and happiness? It was a saintlike taste, and the 
world is rendered a little like Paradise by the presence of 
such women. Back in London the papers were full of 
the great exhibition of 1851, but she was more interested 
in her Kaiserwerth work than to be at home. When she 
had finished her course of instruction, Pastor Fliedner 
said, since he had been director of that institution no one 
had ever passed so distinguished an examination, or shown 
herself so thoroughly mistress of all she had learned. 

On her return to Lea Hurst, she could not rest very 


42 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


long, while there was so much work to be done in the 
world. In London, a hospital for sick governesses was 
about to fail, from lack of means and poor management. 
Nobody seemed very deeply interested for these over¬ 
worked teachers. But Miss Nightingale was interested, 
and leaving her lovely home, she came to the dreary house 
in Harley Street, where she gave her time and her fortune 
for several years. Her own frail health sank for a time 
from the close confinement, but she had seen the institu¬ 
tion placed on a sure foundation, and prosperous. 

The Crimean War had begun. England had sent out 
ship-loads of men to the Black Sea, to engage in war with 
Russia. Little thought seemed to have been taken, in the 
hurry and enthusiasm of war, to provide proper clothing 
or food for the men in that changing climate. In the des¬ 
olate country there was almost no means of transporta¬ 
tion, and men and animals suffered from hunger. After 
the first winter cholera broke out, in one camp alone 
twenty men died in twenty-four hours. 

Matters grew from bad to worse. William Howard 
Russell, the Times correspondent, wrote home to England: 
“It is now pouring rain,—the skies are black as ink,— 
the wind is howling over the staggering tents,—the 
trenches are turned into dykes,—in the tents the water is 
sometimes a foot deep,—our men have not either warm 
or waterproof clothing,—they are out for twelve hours 
at a time in the trenches,—they are plunged into the inevi¬ 
table miseries of a winter campaign,—and not a soul 
seems to care for their comfort, or even for their lives. 
These are hard truths, but the people of England must 
hear them. They must know that the wretched beggar 
who wanders about the streets of London in the rain, leads 
the life of a prince, compared with the British soldiers who 
are fighting out here for their country. 

“The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


43 


there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanli¬ 
ness ; the stench is appalling; the fetid air can barely strug¬ 
gle out to taint the atmosphere, save through the chinks in 
the walls and roofs; and, for all I can observe, these men 
die without the least effort being made to save them. 
There they lie, just as they were let gently down on the 
ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought 
them on their backs from the camp with the greatest ten¬ 
derness, but who are not allowed to remain with them. 
The sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying 
by the dying.” 

During the rigorous winter of 1854, with snow three 
feet thick, many were frozen in their tents. Out of 
nearly forty-five thousand, over eighteen thousand were 
reported in the hospitals. The English nation became 
aroused at this state of things, and in less than two weeks 
seventy-five thousand dollars poured into the Times office 
for the suffering soldiers. A special commissioner, Mr. 
Macdonald, was sent to the Crimea with shirts, sheets, 
flannels, and necessary food. 

But one of the greatest of all needs was woman’s hand 
and brain, in the dreadful suffering and the confusion. 
The testimony of the world thus far has been that men 
everywhere need the help of women, and women every¬ 
where need the help of men. Right Honorable Sydney 
Herbert, the Secretary of War, knew of but one woman 
who could bring order and comfort to those far-away 
hospitals, and that woman was Miss Nightingale. She 
had made herself ready at Kaiserwerth for a great work, 
and now a great work was ready for her. 

But she was frail in health, and was it probable that 
a rich and refined lady would go thousands of miles from 
her kindred, to live in feverish wards where there were 
only men? A true woman dares do anything that helps 
the world. 


44 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


Mr. Herbert wrote her, October 15 : “There is, as far as 
I know, only one person in England, capable of organiz¬ 
ing and directing such a plan, and I have been several 
times on the point of asking you if you would be disposed 
to make the attempt. That it will be difficult to form a 
corps of nurses, no one knows better than yourself. . . . 
I have this simple question to put to you: Could you go 
out yourself, and take charge of everything? It is, of 
course, understood that you will have absolute authority 
over all the nurses, unlimited power to draw on the gov¬ 
ernment for all you judge necessary to the success of 
your mission; and I think I may assure you of the co¬ 
operation of the medical staff. Your personal qualities, 
your knowledge, and your authority in administrative 
affairs, all fit you for this position.” 

It was a strange coincidence that on that same day, 
October 15, Miss Nightingale, her heart stirred for the 
suffering soldiers, had written a letter to Mr. Herbert, of¬ 
fering her services to the government. A few days later 
the world read, with moistened eyes, this letter from the 
war office: “Miss Nightingale, accompanied by thirty- 
four nurses, will leave this evening. Miss Nightingale, 
who has, I believe, greater practical experience of hospi¬ 
tal administration and treatment than any other lady in 
this country, has, with a self-devotion for which I have 
no words to express my gratitude, undertaken this noble 
but arduous work.” 

The heart of the English nation followed the heroic 
woman. Mrs. Jameson wrote: “It is an undertaking 
wholly new to our English customs, much at variance with 
the usual education given to women in this country. If it 
succeeds, it will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence 
Nightingale and her band of devoted assistants, that they 
have broken down a Chinese wall of prejudices,—reli¬ 
gious, social, professional,—and have established a prece- 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


45 


dent which will, indeed, multiply the good to all time.” 
She did succeed and the results can scarcely be overesti¬ 
mated. 

As the band of nurses passed through France, hotel- 
keepers would take no pay for their accommodation; poor 
fisherwomen at Boulogne struggled for the honor of car¬ 
rying their baggage to the railway station. They sailed 
in the Vectis across the Mediterranean, reaching Scutari, 
November 5, the day of the battle of Inkerman. 

They found in the great Barrack Hospital which had 
been lent to the British by the Turkish government, and 
in another large hospital near by, about four thousand 
men. The corridors were filled with two rows of mat¬ 
tresses, so close that two persons could scarcely walk be¬ 
tween them. There was work to be done at once. 

One of the nurses wrote home, “The whole of yester¬ 
day one could only forget one’s own existence, for it was 
spent, first in sewing the men’s mattresses together, and 
then in washing them, and assisting the surgeons, when 
we could, in dressing their ghastly wounds after their 
five days’ confinement on board ship, during which space 
their wounds had not been dressed. Hundreds of men 
with fever, dysentery, and cholera (the wounded were the 
smaller portion) filled the wards in succession from the 
overcrowded transports.” 

Miss Nightingale, calm and unobtrusive, went quietly 
among the men, always with a smile of sympathy for the 
suffering. The soldiers often wept, as for the first time 
in months, even years, a woman’s hand adjusted their 
pillows, and a woman’s voice soothed their sorrows. 

Miss Nightingale’s pathway was not an easy one. Her 
coming did not meet the general approval of the military 
or medical officials. Some thought women would be in 
the way; others felt that their coming was an interference. 
Possibly some did not like to have persons about who 


46 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


would be apt to tell the truth on their return to England. 
But with good sense and much tact she was able to over¬ 
come the disaffection, using her almost unlimited power 
with discretion. 

As soon as the wounded were attended to, she estab¬ 
lished an invalid s kitchen, where appetizing food could 
be prepared,—one of the essentials in convalescence. 
Here she overlooked the proper cooking for eight hun¬ 
dred men who could not eat ordinary food. Then she 
established a laundry. The beds and shirts of the men 
were in a filthy condition, some wearing the ragged 
clothing in which they were brought down from the 
Crimea. It was difficult to obtain either food or cloth¬ 
ing, partly from the immense amount of “red tape” in 
official life. 

Miss Nightingale seemed to be everywhere. Dr. Pin- 
coffs said: “I believe that there never was a severe case 
of any kind that escaped her notice; and sometimes it was 
wonderful to see her at the bedside of a patient who had 
been admitted perhaps but an hour before, and of whose 
arrival one would hardly have supposed it possible she 
could already be cognizant.” 

She aided the senior chaplain, in establishing a library 
and school-room, and in getting up evening lectures for 
the men. She supplied books and games, wrote letters for 
the sick, and forwarded their little savings to their home- 
friends. 

For a year and a half, till the close of the war, she 
did a wonderful work, reducing the death-rate in the Bar¬ 
rack Hospital from sixty per cent, to a little above one per 
cent. Said the Times correspondent: “Wherever there 
is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the 
spoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable 
woman sure to be seen; her benignant presence is an in¬ 
fluence for good comfort even amid the struggles of ex- 


47 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 

piring nature. She is a 'ministering angel,’ without any 
exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form 
glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s 
face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When 
all the medical officers have retired for the night, and 
silence and darkness have settled down upon these miles 
of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with a little 
lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. 

“With the heart of a true woman and the manner of 
a lady, accomplished and refined beyond most of her sex, 
she combines a surprising calmness of judgment and 
promptitude and decision of character. The popular in¬ 
stinct was not mistaken, which, when she set out from 
England on her mission of mercy, hailed her as a hero¬ 
ine ; I trust she may not earn her title to a higher, though 
sadder, appellation. No one who has observed her frag¬ 
ile figure and delicate health can avoid misgivings lest 
these should fail.” 

One of the soldiers wrote home: “She would speak to 
one and another, and nod and smile to many more; but 
she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by 
hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and 
lay our heads on our pillows again content.” Another 
wrote home: “Before she came there was such cussin’ 
and swearin’, and after that it was as holy as a church.” 
No wonder she was called the “Angel of the Crimea.” 
Once she was prostrated with fever, but recovered after 
a few weeks. 

Finally the war came to an end. London was prepar¬ 
ing to give Miss Nightingale a royal welcome, when, lo! 
she took passage by design on a French steamer, and 
reached Lea Hurst, August 15, 1856 unbeknown to any 
one. There was a murmur of disappointment at first 
but the people could only honor all the more the woman 
who wished no blare of trumpets for her humane acts. 


48 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


Queen Victoria sent for her to visit her at Balmoral, 
and presented her with a valuable jewel; a ruby-red 
enamel cross on a white field, encircled by a black band, 
with the words, “Blessed are the merciful.” The letters 
V. R., surmounted by a crown in diamonds, are impressed 
upon the centre of the cross. Green enamel branches of 
palm, tipped with gold, form the framework of the shield, 
while around their stems is a riband of the blue enamel 
with the single word “Crimea.” On the top are three 
brilliant stars of diamonds. On the back is an inscrip¬ 
tion written by the Queen. The Sultan sent her a magnif¬ 
icent bracelet, and the government, $250,000, to found 
the school for nurses at St. Thomas’ Hospital. 

After her return home, Miss Nightingale was never in 
strong health, but she wrote several valuable books. Her 
Hospital Notes, published in 1859 furnished plans for 
scores of new hospitals. Her Notes on Nursing, pub¬ 
lished in i860, of which over one hundred thousand were 
sold, deserve to be in every home. She was a most earnest 
advocate of sunlight and fresh air. 

She said: “An extraordinary fallacy is the dread of 
night air. What air can we breathe at night but night 
air ? The choice is between pure night air from without, 
and foul night air from within. Most people prefer the 
latter,—an unaccountable choice. What will they say if it 
be proved true that fully one-half of all the disease we 
suffer from is occasioned by people,sleeping with their 
windows shut? An open window most nights of the year 
can never hurt any one. In great cities night air is often 
the best and purest to be had in the twenty-four hours. 

“The five essentials, for healthy houses,” she says, are 
“pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness and 
light. ... I have known whole houses and hospitals 
smell of the sink. I have met just as strong a stream 
of sewer air coming up the back staircase of a grand 


FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 


49 


London house from the sink, as I have ever met at Scutari; 
and I have seen the rooms in that house all ventilated by 
the open doors, and the passages all mventilated by the 
closed windows, in order that as much of the sewer air as 
possible might be conducted into and retained in the bed¬ 
rooms. It is wonderful!” 

She also wrote Observations on the Sanitary State of 
the Army in India, 1863; Life or Death in India, read be¬ 
fore the National Association for the Promotion of Social 
Science, 1873, with an appendix on Life or Death by Ir¬ 
rigation, 1874. 

She was constantly doing deeds of kindness. With a 
subscription sent by her to the Gordon Memorial Fund, 
she said: “Might but the example of this great and pure 
hero be made to tell, in that self no longer existed to him, 
but only God and duty, on the soldiers who have died to 
save him, and on boys who should live to follow him.” 

Florence Nightingale died August 13, 1910, at the age 
of ninety. She had received many distinguished honors: 
the freedom of the city of London in 1908, and from 
King Edward VII, a year previously, a membership in 
the Order of Merit, given only to a select few men. 

Her funeral was a quiet one, according to her wishes. 
But her memory grows the greener with each passing 
year. The world is a better place to live in, because of 
Florence Nightingale. 


JEAN INGELOW 

The same friend who had given me Mrs. Browning’s 
five volumes in blue and gold, came one day with a dainty 
volume just published by Roberts Brothers, of Boston. 
They had found a new poet, and one possessing a beau¬ 
tiful name. Possibly it was a non de plume , for who had 
heard any real name so musical as that of Jean Ingelow? 

I took the volume down by the quiet stream that flows 
below Amherst College, and day after day, under a grand 
old tree, read some of the most musical words, wedded 
to as pure thought as our century has produced. 

The world was just beginning to know The High Tide 
on the Coast of Lincolnshire. Eyes were dimming as 
they read,— 

“I looked without, and lo! my sonne 
Came riding down with might and main: 

He raised a shout as he drew on, 

Till all the welkin rang again, 

‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth!’ 

(A sweeter woman ne’er drew breath 
Than my sonne’s wife Elizabeth.) 

“The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe, 

The rising tide comes on apace, 

And boats adrift in yonder towne 
Go sailing uppe the market-place/ 

He shook as one who looks on death: 

‘God save you, mother!’ straight he saith; 

‘Where is my wife, Elizabeth?’ ” 

50 


JEAN INGELOW >51 

And then the waters laid her body at his very door, 
and the sweet voice that called, “Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” 
was stilled forever. 

The Songs of Seven soon became as household words, 
because they were a reflection of real life. Nobody ever 
pictured a child more exquisitely than the little seven- 
year-old, who, rich with the little knowledge that seems 
much to a child, looks down from superior heights upon 

'‘The lambs that play always, they know no better; 
They are only one times one.” 

So happy is she that she makes boon companions of the 
flowers:— 

“O brave marshmary buds, rich and yellow, 

Give me your honey to hold! 

“O columbine, open your folded wrapper, 

Where two twin turtle-doves dwell! 

O cuckoopint, toll me the purple clapper 
That hangs in your clear green bell ! ,y 

At "seven times two,” who of us has not waited for 
the great heavy curtains of the future to be drawn aside? 

"I wish and I wish that the spring would go faster, 
Nor long summer bide so late; 

And I could grow on, like the fox-glove and aster, 

For some things are ill to wait.” 

At twenty-one the girl’s heart flutters with expec¬ 
tancy :— 

"I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover, 

Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; 

Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover; 

Hush nightingale, hush! O sweet nightingale wait 


52 


JEAN INGELOW 


Till I listen and hear 
If a step draweth near, 

For my love he is late!” 

At twenty-eight, the happy mother lives in a simple 
home, made beautiful by her children:— 

“Heigho! daisies and buttercups! 

Mother shall thread them a daisy chain.” 

At thirty-five a widow; at forty-two giving up her 
children to brighten other homes; at forty-nine, “Longing 
for Home.” 

“I had a nestful once of my own, 

Ah, happy, happy I! 

Right dearly I loved them, but when they were grown 
They spread out their wings to fly. 

O, one after another they flew away, 

Far up to the heavenly blue, 

To the better country, the upper day, 

And—I wish I was going too.” 

The Songs of Seven will be read and treasured as long 
as there are women in the world to be loved, and men in 
the world to love them. 

Years went by, and I was at last to see the author of 
the poems I had loved in girlhood. I had wondered how 
she looked, what was her manner, and what were her sur¬ 
roundings. 

In Kensington, a suburb of London, in a two-story- 
and-a-half stone house, cream-colored, then dwelt Jean In- 
gelow. Tasteful grounds were in front of the home, and 
in the rear a large lawn bordered with many flowers, and 
conservatories; a real English garden, soft as velvet, and 
fragrant as new-mown hay. The house was fit for a 


JEAN INGELOW 


53 


poet; roomy, cheerful, and filled with flowers. One end 
of the large, double parlors seemed a bank of azalias and 
honeysuckles, while great bunches of yellow primrose and 
blue forget-me-not were on the tables and in the bay- 
windows. 

But most interesting of all was the poet herself, in 
middle life, with fine, womanly face, friendly manner, 
and cultivated mind. For an hour we talked of many 
things in both countries. Miss Ingelow showed great 
familiarity with American literature and with our national 
questions. 

While everything about her indicated deep love for 
poetry, and a keen sense of the beautiful, her conversa¬ 
tion, fluent and admirable, showed her to be eminently 
practical and sensible, without a touch of sentimentality. 
Her first work in life seemed to be the making of her 
two brothers happy in the home. She usually spent her 
forenoons in writing. She went over her literary work 
thoroughly keeping her productions a long time before 
they were put into print. As she was never in robust 
health, she gave little time to society, and passed her 
winters in the South of France or Italy. A letter from 
the Alps Maritime, at Cannes, says, “This lovely spot is 
full of flowers, birds, and butterflies.” Who that re¬ 
calls her Songs on the Voices of Birds, the blackbird, and 
the nightingale, will not appreciate her happiness with such 
surroundings ? 

With great fondness for, and pride in, her own coun¬ 
try, she had the most kindly feelings toward America and 
her people. She says in the preface of her novel, Fated 
to be Free, concerning this work and Off the Skelligs, “I 
am told that they are peculiar; and I feel that they must 
be so, for most stories of human life are, or at least aim 
at being, works of art—selections of interesting portions 
of life, and fitting incidents put together and presented as 


54 


JEAN INGELOW 

a picture is; and I have not aimed at producing a work 
of art at all, but a piece of nature.” And then she goes 
on to explain her position to “her American friends,” for, 
she says, “I am sure you more than deserve of me some 
efforts to please you. I seldom have an opportunity of 
saying how truly I think so.” 

Jean Ingelow’s life was a quiet but busy and earnest 
one. She was born in the quaint old city of Boston, 
England, in 1830. Her father was a well-to-do banker; 
her mother a cultivated woman of Scotch descent, from 
Aberdeenshire. Jean grew to womanhood in the midst 
of eleven brothers and sisters, without the fate of strug¬ 
gle and poverty, so common among the great. 

She wrote to a friend concerning her childhood:— 

“As a child, I was very happy at times, and generally 
wondering at something. ... I was uncommonly like 

other children.I remember seeing a star, and that 

my mother told me of God who lived up there and made 
the star. This was on a summer evening. It was my 
first hearing of God, and made a great impression on 
my mind. I remember better than anything that certain 
ecstatic sensations of joy used to get hold of me, and that 
I used to creep into corners to think out my thoughts by 
myself. I was, however, extremely timid, and easily over¬ 
awed by fear. We had a lofty nursery with a bow- 
window that overlooked the river. My brother and I 
were constantly wondering at this river. The coming up 
of the tides, and the ships, and the jolly gangs of towers 
ragging them on with a monotonous song made a daily 
delight for us. The washing of the water, the sunshine 
upon it, and the reflections of the waves on our nursery 
ceiling supplied hours of talk to us, and days of pleasure. 
At this time, being three years old, ... I learned my 
letters. ... I used to think a good deal, especially about 
the origin of things. People said often that they had 


JEAN INGELOW 


55' 

been in this world, that house, that nursery, before I came. 
I thought everything must have begun when I did. . . . 
No doubt other children have such thoughts, but few re¬ 
member them. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable 
among intelligent people than the recollections they re¬ 
tain of their early childhood. A few, as I do, remember 
it all. Many remember nothing whatever which occurred 
before they were five years old. ... I have suffered 
much from a feeling of shyness and reserve, and I have 
not been able to do things by trying to do them. What 
comes to me comes of its own accord, and almost in spite 
of me; and I have hardly any power when verses are once 
written to make them any better. . . . There were no 
hardships in my youth, but care was bestowed on me and 
my brothers and sisters by a father and mother who were 
both cultivated people.” 

To another friend she wrote: “I suppose I may take 
for granted that mine was the poetic temperament, and 
since there are no thrilling incidents to relate, you may 
think you should like to have my views as to what that 
means. I cannot tell you in an hour, or even in a day, for 
it means so much. I suppose it, of its absence or pres¬ 
ence, to make far more difference between one person and 
another than any contrast of circumstances can do. The 
possessor does not have it for nothing. It isolates, par¬ 
ticularly in childhood; it takes away some common bles¬ 
sings, but then it consoles for them all.” 

With this poetic temperament, that saw beauty in flower, 
and sky, and bird, that felt keenly all the sorrow and all 
the happiness of the world about her that wrote of life 
rather than art, because to live rightly was the whole prob¬ 
lem of human existence, with this poetic temperament, the 
girl grew to womanhood in the city bordering on the 
sea. 

Boston, at the mouth of the Witham, was once a fa- 


56 


JEAN INGELOW 

mous seaport, the rival of London in commercial prosper¬ 
ity, in the thirteenth century. It was the site of the fa¬ 
mous monastery of St. Botolph, built by a pious monk in 
657. The town which grew up around it was called Bo- 
tolph’s town, contracted finally to Boston. From this 
town Reverend John Colton came to America, and gave 
the name to the capital of Massachusetts, in which he set¬ 
tled. The present famous old church of St. Botolph was 
founded in 1309, having a bell-tower three hundred feet 
high, which supports a lantern visible at sea for forty 
miles. 

The surrounding country is made up largely of marshes 
reclaimed from the sea, which are called fens, and slightly 
elevated tracts of land called moors. Here Jean Inge- 
low studied the green meadows and the ever-changing 
ocean. 

Her first book, A Rhyming Chronicle of Incidents and 
Feelings, was published in 1850, when she was twenty, 
and a novel, A Her ton and Dreux, in 1851; nine years later 
her Tales of Orris. But her fame came at thirty-three, 
when her first full book of Poems was published in 1863. 

The London press said: “Miss Ingelow’s new volume 
exhibits abundant evidence that time, study, and devotion 
to her vocation have both elevated and welcomed the pow¬ 
ers of the most gifted poetess we possess, now that Eliza¬ 
beth Barrett Browning and Adelaide Proctor sing no 
more on earth. Lincolnshire has claims to be considered 
the Arcadia of England at present, having given birth to 
Mr. Tennyson and our present Lady Laureate.” 

The press of America was not less cordial. “Except 
Mrs. Browning, Jean Ingelow is first among the women 
whom the world calls poets,” said the Independent. 

The songs touched the popular heart, and some, set to 
music, were sung at numberless firesides. Who has not 
heard the Sailing beyond Seas? 


JEAN INGELOW 


57 


“Methought the stars were blinking bright, 

And the old brig’s sails unfurled; 

I said, ‘I will sail to my love this night 
At the other side of the world.’ 

I stepped aboard,—we sailed so fast,— 

The sun shot up from the bourne; 

But a dove that perched upon the mast 
Did mourn, and mourn, and mourn. 

“O fair dove! O fond dove! 

And dove with the white breast. 

Let me alone, the dream is my own, 

And my heart is full of rest.” 

Edmund Clarence Stedman, said: “As the voice of 
Mrs. Browning grew silent, the songs of Miss Ingelow be¬ 
gan, and had instant and merited popularity. They 
sprang up suddenly and tunefully as skylarks from the 
daisy-spangled, hawthorn-bordered meadows of old Eng¬ 
land, with a blitheness long unknown, and in their idyllic 
underflights moved with the tenderest currents of human 
life. Miss Ingelow may be termed an idyllic lyrist, her 
lyrical pieces having always much idyllic beauty. High 
Tide, Winstcinley, Songs of Seven, and the Long White 
Seam are lyrical treasures, and the author especially may 
be said to evince that sincerity which is poetry’s most en¬ 
during warrant.” 

In 1864, Studies for Stories was published, of which the 
Athenaeum said, “They are prose poems, carefully medi¬ 
tated, and exquisitely touched in by a teacher ready to sym¬ 
pathize with every joy and sorrow.” The five stories 
are told in simple and clear language, and without slang, 
to which she heartily objects. For one so rich in imagina¬ 
tion as Miss Ingelow, her prose was singularly free from 
obscurity and florid language. 

Stories told to a Child was published in 1865, and A 


58 JEAN INGELOW 

Story of Doom and Other Poems in 1868, the principal 
poem being drawn from the time of the Deluge. Mopsa 
the Fairy, an exquisite story, followed a year later, with 
A Sister's Bye-hours, and since that time, Off the Skel- 
ligs, Fated to be Free, Sarah de Berenger, Don John, and 
Poems of the Old Days and the New. Of the latter, the 
poet Stoddard says: “Beyond all women of the Victo¬ 
rian era, she is the most of an Elizabethan. . . . She has 
tracked the ocean journeyings of Drake, Raleigh, and 
Frobisher, and others to whom the Spanish main was a 
second home, the El Dorado of which Columbus and his 
followers dreamed in their stormy slumbers. . . . The 
first of her poems in this volume, Rosamund, is a masterly 
battle idyl.” 

With all her literary work, she did not forget to do 
good personally. At one time she instituted a “copy¬ 
right dinner,” at her own expense, which she thus de¬ 
scribed to a friend: “I have set up a dinner-table for the 
sick poor, or rather, for such persons as are just out of 
the hospitals, and are hungry, and yet not strong enough 
to work. We have about twelve to dinner three times a 
week, and hope to continue the plan. It is such a com¬ 
fort to see the good it does. I find it one of the great 
pleasures of writing, that it gives me more command of 
money for such purposes than falls to the lot of most 
women.” Again, she wrote to an American friend: “I 
should be much obliged to you if you would give in my 
name twenty-five dollars to some charity in Boston. I 
should prefer such a one as does not belong to any party 
in particular, such as a city infirmary or orphan school. 
I do not like to draw money from your country, and give 
none in charity.” 

Miss Ingelow was very fond of children, and herein lay, 
perhaps, one secret of her success. In Off the Skelligs 
she says: “Some people appear to feel that they are much 


JEAN INGELOW 


59 


wiser, much nearer to the truth and to realities, than they 
were when they were children. They think of childhood 
as immeasurably beneath and behind them. I have never 
been able to join in such a notion. It often seems to 
me that we lose quite as much as we gain by our length¬ 
ened sojourn here. I should not at all wonder if the 
thoughts of our childhood, when we look back on it after 
the rending of this veil of our humanity, should prove less 
unlike what we were intended to derive from the teach¬ 
ing of life, nature, and revelation, than the thoughts of 
our more sophisticated days.” 

Jean Ingelow died at her home in Kensington, London, 
July 19, 1897, at the age of sixty-seven. Her long illness 
ended in simple exhaustion, and she welcomed death gladly. 

Best of all, this true woman and true poet as well, like 
Emerson saw and believed in the progress of the race. 

“Still humanity grows dearer, 

Being learned the more, ,, 

she says, in that tender poem, A Mother showing the Por¬ 
trait of her Child. Blessed optimism! that amid all the 
shortcomings of human nature sees the best, lifts souls up¬ 
ward, and helps to make the world sunny by its singing. 


JENNY LIND 

Jenny Lind fills a unique place among the world’s great 
artists. She was gifted to a marvellous extent in voice. 
She was not beautiful in face, though Sir Julius Benedict 
said that when she was inspired with her theme, “her 
whole face lighted up and became perfectly beautiful.” 
She was the idol of the public, not simply on account of 
her talent, for many are talented, but also because she 
was a veritable prince among givers, and the guardian 
angel of the poor and the unfortunate. 

She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 6, 1820. 
Her father, the son of a lace-maker, was a good-natured 
but weak man, unable to provide for his wife and child. 
He had a good voice, and enjoyed music of “a free and 
convivial kind.” 

Her mother was a woman of great energy and deter¬ 
mination, who, being obliged to care for the child of a 
former unhappy marriage, and in addition the husband 
and child of a second marriage, by teaching school, had 
lost much of her natural sweetness of disposition through 
stern contact with poverty. 

The mother could not care for the child and teach, so 
Jenny was boarded for three years with a church organ¬ 
ist a few miles out of Stockholm. At this early age she 
showed a love for the country, a passion for the singing 
of birds, and for trees and wild flowers, which continued 
through life. 

After her return to Stockholm she attended the school 

kept by her mother, and found much comfort and com- 

60 


JENNY LIND 


61 


panionship in her grandmother. The latter first dis¬ 
covered that Jenny had a voice for singing. 

Having heard some military bugles in the street, the 
child crept to the piano one day, thinking that she was 
alone in the house, and picked out the air which she had 
heard the soldiers play. 

The grandmother, hearing the music, called out the 
name of the half-sister, Amalia, supposing that it was she. 
Jenny hid under the piano in terror. When her grand¬ 
mother found her, she exclaimed, astonished, “Child, was 
that you?” The girl confessed in tears. When the 
mother returned, the grandmother said, “Mark my words, 
that child will bring you help.” 

Fru Lind's school did not pay—it was the old struggle 
of the poor to make ends meet—and she determined to 
become a governess, taking Amalia with her. The grand¬ 
mother went to the Widow’s Home, taking Jenny with 
her. 

The child was not old enough to realize much about 
privation, and as she said in after life, “sang with every 
step I took, and with every jump my feet made.” She 
had a pet cat, with a blue ribbon around its neck, to which 
she sang almost constantly. 

Jenny Lind, at Cannes, in 1887, a little before her 
death, thus spoke of these early days to her eldest son: 
“Her favorite seat with her cat was in the window of the 
steward’s room, which looked out on the lively street lead¬ 
ing up to the Church of St. Jacob’s, and there she sat 
and sang to it; and the people passing in the street used 
to hear, and wonder; and amongst others the maid of a 
Mademoiselle Lundberg, a dancer at the Royal Opera 
House; and the maid told her mistress that she had never 
heard such beautiful singing as this little girl sang to her 
cat. 

“Mademoiselle Lundberg thereupon found out who she 


62 


JENNY LIND 


was, and sent to ask her mother, who seems to have been 
in Stockholm at the time, to bring her to sing to her. 
And, when she heard her sing, she said, ‘The child is a 
genius; you must have her educated for the stage.’ But 
Jenny’s mother, as well as her grandmother, had an old- 
fashioned prejudice against the stage, and she would not 
hear of this. 

“ ‘Then you must, at any rate, have her taught sing¬ 
ing,’ said Mademoiselle Lundberg; and the mother was 
persuaded, in this way, to accept a letter of introduction 
to Herr Crcelius, the court secretary and singing-master 
at the Royal Theatre. 

“Crcelius was moved to tears, and said he must take 
her in to Count Puke, the head of the Royal Theatre, and 
tell him what a treasure he had found. And they went at 
once, and Count Puke’s first question was, ‘How old is 
she?’ and Crcelius answered, ‘Nine years old.’ ‘Nine’ 
exclaimed the count; ‘but this is not a creche! It is the 
king’s theatre!’ And he would not look at her, she being, 
moreover, at that time, what she herself (in her letter 
to the ‘Biographical Lexicon’) calls ‘a small, ugly, broad¬ 
nosed, shy, gauche, under-grown girl!’ 

“ ‘Well,’ said Crcelius, ‘if the count will not hear her, 
then I will teach her gratuitously myself, and she will one 
day astonish you!’ Then Count Puke consented to hear 
her sing; and, when she sang, he too was moved to tears; 
and from that moment she was accepted, and was taken 
and taught to sing, and educated, and brought up at the 
Government expense.” 

For ten years Jenny studied and acted at the Royal 
Theatre. The pupils boarded at various homes in the 
city, the theatre paying for food and clothes, and as Fru 
Lind had given up her position as governess and returned 
to Stockholm, she took her own child, among others, to 
board. 


JENNY LIND 


63 


These early years, full of hard work, were not very 
happy ones for the young girl. The mother, with her 
burdens and discouragements, was probably irritable, and 
Jenny, unable to bear the friction of home life any longer, 
ran away. After a law-suit between the impecunious 
Linds, who needed the board-money, and the directors of 
the theatre, the child was returned to her parents, to 
whom, unfortunately, she legally belonged. 

Jenny began to act almost as soon as she was admitted 
to the Royal Theatre. At ten she played the part of 
Angela in “The Polish Mine.” The next year she was 
Johanna in “Testamentet.” The press spoke of her acting 
as showing “fire and feeling far beyond her years.” 

When about seventeen she began to study the part of 
Agatha in Weber’s “Der Freischiitz.” One day she 
thought, to satisfy her teacher, Madame Erikson, of whom 
she was very fond, she would put her whole soul into 
her part. She did so, and the teacher met the effort with 
silence. “Am I, then, so incapable?” thought the girl, 
till she saw the tears on her teacher’s face. “My child, 
I have nothing to teach you; do as nature tells you,” she 
said. 

On the day of her debut, March 7, 1838, she was ex¬ 
tremely nervous and worried, but after the first note on 
the stage all fear disappeared. The people were surprised 
and delighted, and she most of all, for she had learned 
her ability. 

She often said afterwards, “I got up that morning one 
creature; I went to bed another creature. I had found 
my power.” All through life the 7th of March was 
kept with grateful remembrance; it was a second birth¬ 
day in her life. 

In 1839 her most effective part was Alice in Meyer¬ 
beer’s “Robert le Diable,” which she sang twenty-three 
times to enthusiastic audiences. So popular was she in 


64 JENNY LIND 

this piece that she gave it sixty times in the same theatre 
during the next four years. 

Towards the- close of 1839 Jenny removed from her 
home to the house of the chief of Swedish song-writers, 
Adolf Fredrik Lindblad. In this family she found com¬ 
panionship and quiet for study. “I have to thank him,” 
said Jenny Lind, forty years later, “for that fine compre¬ 
hension of art which was implanted by his idealistic, 
pure, and unsensual nature into me, his ready pupil. 
Subsequently Christianity stepped in to satisfy the moral 
needs, and to teach me to look well into my own soul.” 

Jenny Lind was about five feet and three to four inches 
in height, with “dove-like blue eyes’’ and light hair, a 
face which expressed every emotion, a quick and alert 
mind which, said N. P. Willis, “comprehended every¬ 
thing by the time it was half expressed,” a dislike of 
the “small talk” of society and of compliments, and a 
natural, frank, sincere manner. While vivacious, there 
was an undertone of melancholy in her nature, as perhaps 
there must always be in those who think deeply, and are 
conversant with the world’s woes. 

When she was twenty she was made a member of the 
Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and was appointed 
court singer by his Majesty, Carl Johan. She had deter¬ 
mined to go to Paris to study, feeling that she had the 
Eternal Fire of which Geijer had written. The directors 
of the theatre tried to dissuade her by the offer of a salary 
of one hundred and fifty pounds, which she declined. 

On leaving Sweden, Jenny Lind took a letter of in¬ 
troduction from Queen Desiree (the wife of Marechal 
Bernadotte, who became King of Sweden and Norway in 
1818, under the title of Carl XIV., Johan) to her rela¬ 
tive, Madame la Marechale Soult. At the house of the 
latter Jenny sang before Signor Manuel Garcia, the great¬ 
est singing-master of the century. Later, Jenny called 



© Underwood and Underwood 


CZ3 




JENNY LIND AND SCENE OF HER FIRST AMERICAN 

APPEARANCE 
















JENNY LIND 


65 


upon him, desiring to take lessons. She sang in “Lucia,” 
in which she had appeared thirty-nine times in Stock¬ 
holm the previous year, and broke down. He said to the 
frightened girl, who had nearly worn herself out by her 
hard work, “It would be useless to teach you, Made¬ 
moiselle; you have no voice left.” 

She told Mendelssohn years afterward that the agony 
of that moment exceeded all she had suffered in her whole 
life. 

She asked Garcia, with tears in her eyes, what she 
was to do. Evidently moved by her sorrow, he said she 
must give her voice a complete rest for six weeks, not 
singing at all, and talking very little. At the end of that 
time she might come to him again. At once she began 
diligently to perfect herself in the French language. 

On her return to Garcia her voice had so improved 
that he was willing to give her two lessons a week. She 
began to practice the scales and exercises four hours or 
more daily. For ten months she studied almost continu¬ 
ously. Garcia’s help was valuable, but she knew that her 
power came from another source. 

In the fall of 1844, she went to Berlin. Through 
Meyerbeer she was privately presented to the royal fam¬ 
ily. Before appearing in opera, she was asked to sing 
at a small party given by Augusta, afterwards empress. 
The Countess of Westmoreland, whose husband, the earl, 
was the English ambassador to Prussia, and a noted mu¬ 
sician as well, the founder of the Royal x^cademy of 
Music in London, was at the party given by Augusta. 
Lady Westmoreland thus describes the event, as told her 
by her mother, the countess: “She went in, full of curi¬ 
osity, and saw sitting by the lamp a thin, pale, plain- 
featured girl, looking awkward and nervous, and like a 
very shy country schoolgirl. She could not believe her 
eyes, and said that she and her neighbors, among whom 


66 


JENNY LIND 


was Countess Rossi (Henrietta Sontag), whose fame as 
a singer and a beauty was then still recent, began to specu¬ 
late whether Meyerbeer was playing a practical joke on 
them; and when he came up to speak to them, my mother 
asked him if he was really serious in meaning to bring 
that frightened child out in his opera. His only answer 
was, ‘Attendez, Miladi / 

“When the time came for her song, my mother used to 
say it was the most extraordinary experience she ever re¬ 
membered. The wonderful notes came ringing out; but 
over and above that was the wonderful transfiguration 
—no other word could apply—which came over her en¬ 
tire face and figure, lightening them up with the whole 
fire and dignity of her genius. The effect on the whole 
audience was simply marvellous. 

“When she reached home, my father asked her, ‘Well, 
what do you think of Meyerbeer’s wonder?’ 

“She answered, ‘She is simply an angel.’ 

“ ‘Is she so very handsome?’ 

“ ‘I saw a plain girl when I went in, but when she be¬ 
gan to sing her face simply and literally shone like that 
of an angel. I never saw anything, or heard anything, 
the least like it.’ ” 

Every evening was an ovation to the singer. When 
“La Sonnambula’’ was given, the prices asked and paid 
were unprecedented. Meyerbeer wrote her, urging her 
to overcome her diffidence; but added, “Whether heaven 
grants you or not this little supplement to your other 
precious qualities, you will always be, for me, my dear 
Mademoiselle, one of the most touching and noble char¬ 
acters that I have ever met during my long artistic wan¬ 
derings, and one to whom I have vowed for my whole 
life the most profound and sincere admiration and es¬ 
teem.” 

Mendelssohn came now and then to Berlin, for while 


JENNY LIND 


67 

his devoted family lived there, his duties called him to 
Leipzig, where he had founded the Conservatorium in 
1843, an d as leader of the orchestra of the Gewandhaus. 
Jenny Lind wrote to Judge Munthe, “Felix Mendelssohn 
comes sometimes to Berlin, and I have often been in his 
company. He is a man, and, at the same time, he has the 
most supreme talent. Thus should it be.” 

Mendelssohn took Jenny Lind to Leipzig to assist in 
his famous Gewandhaus Concerts, the finest in Europe. 
The rush for tickets was so great that not one-fourth of 
the applicants could be accommodated. Herr Brockhaus 
said, “Soul and expression so intimately associated with 
so beautiful a voice and so perfect a method will never be 
met with again. . . . One can only wonder, and love her. 
And this affectionate appreciation is universal,—the same 
with young and old, with men and with women.” 

In 1847, s ^ e went to London to fill an engagement at 
Her Majesty's Theatre. She was to receive forty-eight 
hundred pounds for the season,—April 14 to August 20, 
—with a furnished house to live in, horses and carriage, 
and eight hundred pounds extra for a month in Italy, if 
she wished to study the language more fully, or for rest. 
This, of course, was more than she had ever received 
before. 

The excitement was intense on the night when Jenny 
Lind was to make her first appearance. The rush for 
places was so great that men were thrown down, ladies 
fainted, and dress-suits were torn in pieces. The Queen 
and Prince Albert were present, with other distinguished 
people. 

Jenny Lind sang Alice in “Robert le Diable.” The 
Queen, herself an accomplished musician, was delighted, 
and threw a wreath at the feet of the artist. 

Queen Victoria records in her diary, of the air, “Ah! 
non credea “It was all piano, and clear and sweet, and 


68 JENNY LIND 

like the sighing of a zephyr, yet all heard. Who could 
describe those long notes, drawn out till they quite melt 
away, that shake which becomes softer and softer, those 
very piano and flute-like notes, and those round fresh 
tones which are so youthful?’’ 

At Bath, she talked with an aged woman, whom she 
saw walking backward and forward before the almshouse. 
“I have lived a long time in the world,” said the woman, 
“and desire nothing before I die but to hear Jenny 
Lind.” 

“And would it make you happy?” said the singer. 

“Ay, that it would; but such folks as I can’t go to the 
play-house, and so I shall never see her.” 

“Don’t be so sure of that,” said the other, as they 
entered the house. “Sit down and listen.” 

The old lady heard, and wept at the unusual music. 
“Now you have heard Jenny Lind,” said the stranger, 
and departed. 

The death of Mendelssohn, November 4, 1847, had been 
a great blow to her. She wrote to a friend in Austria: 
“For the first two months after it, I could not put a 
word down on paper, and everything seemed to me to 
be dead. Never was I so happy, so lifted in spirit, as 
when I spoke with him! And seldom can there have been 
in the world two beings who so understood one another, 
and so sympathized with one another, as we! How glori¬ 
ous and strange are the ways of God! On the one hand, 
He gives all! On the other, He takes all away! Such is 
life’s outlook!” 

For two whole years she could not bear to sing a Lied 
of Mendelssohn’s. “As soon as I am obliged to hear or 
read anything about him,” she said, “I get almost inca¬ 
pable of carrying out the great duty which I have taken 
upon my shoulders.” 

At the height of her career, Jenny Lind decided to leave 


JENNY LIND 


69 

the stage. Her farewell, May 10, 1849, was in Alice in 
“Robert.” At the close three times she came before an 
enraptured but sorrowing audience, which rose each time 
she appeared. Tears flowed down her cheeks, while the 
audience shouted themselves hoarse. For nineteen years, 
from a child of ten, she had been the idol of the public. 
She would sing again for a time in concerts, but at 
twenty-nine she bade adieu to the stage forever. 

In eleven years, between her first appearance in opera, 
in “Der Freischutz,” March 7, 1838, and her last in 
“Robert le Diable,” she appeared in thirty operas six 
hundred and seventy-seven times. 

She never regretted her decision to leave the stage. 
She wrote later to Madame Birch-PfeifTer: “I cannot 
tell you in words how happy I feel about it. I shall sing 
in concerts; ... in this way I shall be able to work at 
least five years longer; and that is necessary for me, as, for 
the last tw r elve months, I have sung only for institutions 
and charities. Without a beautiful goal one cannot en¬ 
dure life. At least I cannot. I have begun to sing what 
has long been the wish of my heart—oratorio. There I 
can sing the music I love; and the words make me feel a 
better being.” 

In the early part of 1850, Jenny Lind sang at Got¬ 
tingen, where the students made her a “Sister-Associate” 
of one of their famous guilds, and hung her portrait in 
their Assembly Room. She sang at Hanover twice for 
charity; at Brunswick, for pensions for the ducal orches¬ 
tra ; at Liibeck, for the poor; for the widow of the orches¬ 
tral director, Bach, and for the pianist, Schreinzer, and 
reached Stockholm May 12, where she gave six concerts 
for the benefit of the Royal Theatre which had educated 
her, and sang at two state concerts in honor of the wed¬ 
ding of the crown prince. 

The fame of Jenny Lind had, of course, spread to the 



70 


JENNY LIND 


New World. The Emperor of Russia, at this time, of¬ 
fered her $56,000 for five months. P. T. Barnum deter¬ 
mined to bring the singer before the American public, if 
possible. Pie sent his agent to Europe, who made a con¬ 
tract with Jenny Lind for one hundred and fifty concerts, 
at one thousand dollars a night, with expenses paid for 
herself, a companion and secretary, a servant, horses and 
carriage furnished. This contract was afterwards 
changed by Mr. Barnum in her interest, she to receive 
half the profits whenever the receipts were above five 
thousand five hundred dollars a night, and a right to an¬ 
nul the contract after sixty or one hundred concerts, with 
fixed penalties in either case. Mr. Barnum had faith in 
his venture, but the American public had not. He had 
great difficulty in raising the $187,500, which he had 
pledged Jenny Lind should be in the hands of London 
bankers for herself and musicians, as her security. When 
he asked the president of a bank to aid him, the friend 
laughed and said, “It is generally believed in Wall Street 
that your engagement with Jenny Lind will ruin you. 
I do not believe you will ever receive so much as three 
thousand dollars at a single concert.” A clergyman 
loaned him the last five thousand dollars needed. 

When she arrived, thousands were on the dock eager 
to catch a glimpse of her. Triumphal arches, surmounted 
by the eagle, bore the inscriptions, “Welcome, Jenny 
Lind! Welcome to America!” That evening she was 
serenaded at her hotel, the Irving House, by the New 
York Musical Fund Society, twenty thousand persons 
being present. 

America seemed even more wild with enthusiasm than 
Europe had been. Tickets for the first concert, Septem¬ 
ber 11, 1850, in Castle Garden, were sold by auction, some 
persons paying as high as six hundred and fifty dollars for 


JENNY LIND 


71 

a single ticket. The "Jenny Lind Mania,” as it was called, 
swept over the country. Jenny Lind’s share, from the 
first concert, was nearly ten thousand dollars. She im¬ 
mediately sent for the mayor of the city, and divided it, 
according to his advice, among charitable institutions. 

From the ninety-three concerts given by Jenny Lind, 
under Mr. Barnum’s management, the proceeds were 
$712,161. Her portion was $176,675. Sometimes the 
proceeds from a single concert were over sixteen thou¬ 
sand dollars. In New York City alone she gave away 
between thirty and forty thousand dollars in charities. 
When warned against so much liberality, as some un¬ 
worthy persons were seeking aid, she invariably replied, 
'‘Never mind; if I relieve ten, and one is worthy, I am 
satisfied.” 

The last sixty nights of the concert series were given 
under her own management, assisted by Mr. Otto Gold¬ 
schmidt, of Hamburg, an accomplished musician. At the 
close of her tour, she was married to Mr. Goldschmidt, at 
the house of Mr. S. G. Ward, in Boston, by Bishop Wain- 
wright, of New York, February 5, 1852. The Hon. Ed¬ 
ward Everett and a few others, were witnesses. Jenny 
Lind was, at this time, thirty-one and her husband twenty- 
three, he having been born August 21, 1829. 

The marriage proved to be a happy one. She had 
found, she wrote a friend, "all that her heart ever wanted 
and loved.” Her charities in America were unceasing. 
"While she habitually declined,” says Mr. N. P. Willis, 
"the calls and attentions of fashionable society, she was 
in constant dread of driving more humble claimants from 
her door. She submitted, every day, to the visits of 
strangers, as far as strength and her professional duties 
would any way endure. To use her own expression, she 
was 'torn in pieces.’ ” 


72 


JENNY LIND 


In 1852, Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt and her husband re¬ 
turned to Europe, and spent some years in Dresden. 
During the early half of 1854, she sang in Berlin, Leipzig, 
Vienna, and Budapest, and in the following year, at Am¬ 
sterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and many other cities, 
always receiving the same enthusiastic welcome. In 
1856, she sang in England, and later, in Ireland and Ger¬ 
many. 

After her return to England, Jenny Lind sang on 
special occasions only. She gave three oratorios for 
charitable purposes at Exeter Hall during the Interna¬ 
tional Exhibition. In 1865 she appeared in the “Mes¬ 
siah,” for the Clergy Fund Corporation; in 1866, at 
Cannes; in 1867, at the Musical Festival at Hereford; 
in 1869, in Hamburg and London, in “Ruth” an opera 
composed by her husband; in Dusseldorf and London, 
in 1870 and 1871, the latter year, in concert with Madame 
Schumann; in 1873, at Northumberland House, before 
it was taken down; in 1877, in behalf of the Turkish 
Refugee Fund; in 1880, in behalf of the Albert Institute 
in a royal concert at Windsor; in 1883, her last public 
appearance in concert, for the Railway Servants’ Benevo¬ 
lent Fund, at the Spa, Malvern Hills. 

During her last years she gave much time to training 
the soprano voices in the Bach choir, founded by her hus¬ 
band in 1875, and helping the Royal College of Music, of 
whose faculty she was a member. 

These last years were very happy, as she saw her chil¬ 
dren and grandchildren grow up around her. In 1887 
she was attacked with paralysis, and was ill for several 
weeks. As she lay on her death-bed, her daughter opened 
the shutters to let in the morning sun, and she sang the 
first bars of the song she loved, “An den Sonnenschein,” 
the last notes she ever sang. 

She died November 2, 1887, at Wynds Point, her cot- 


JENNY LIND 73 

tage on Malvern Hills. The Queen sent a wreath of 
white flowers for the woman whom she honored. 

In accordance with her oft-expressed desire, the patch- 
work quilt, which the children of the United States gave 
her, was buried with her. 

Jenny Lind’s benevolences have been estimated at a 
half million dollars, and this is, perhaps, an under esti¬ 
mate. 

Though very modest, she knew and appreciated her 
genius, and spoke to her friends “of the heavenly career” 
which she had been permitted to have. “If you knew,” 
she wrote in 1847, “what a sensation of the nearness of 
a higher power one instinctively feels when one is per¬ 
mitted to contribute to the good of mankind, as I have 
done, and still do! Believe me, it is a great gift of God’s 
mercy!” 


MADAME DE STAEL 


It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun 
shone out mild and beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we 
sailed up to Coppet. The banks were dotted with lovely 
homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant flower¬ 
beds came close to the water’s edge. Snow-covered 
Mont Blanc looked down upon the restful scene, which 
seemed as charming as anything in Europe. 

We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the 
landing, between great rows of oaks, horse-chestnuts, 
and sycamores, to the famous home we had come to look 
upon,—that of Madame de Stael. It is a French chateau, 
two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding 
an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high 
walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you 
enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with 
many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur 
Necker. The next room is the large library, with furni¬ 
ture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old 
Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier 
used to sit with Madame de Stael, and look out upon the 
exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. 
Here is the work-table of her whom Macaulay called 
“the greatest woman of her times,” and of whom Byron 
said, “She is a woman by herself, and has done more than 
all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to 
have been a man.” 

Next we enter the drawing-room, with carpet woven 
in a single piece; the furniture red and white. We stop 
to look upon the picture of Monsieur Necker, the father, 

74 


75 


MADAME DE STAEL 

a strong, noble-looking man; of the mother, in white silk 
dress, with powdered hair, and very beautiful; and De 
Stael herself, in a brownish yellow dress, with low neck 
and short sleeves, holding in her hand the branch of 
flowers, which she always carried, or a leaf, that thus her 
hands might be employed while she engaged in the con¬ 
versation that astonished Europe. Here also are the pic¬ 
tures of the Baron, her husband, in white wig and military 
dress; here her idolized son and daughter, the latter beau¬ 
tiful, with mild, sad face, and dark hair and eyes. 

What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year ? 
Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only per¬ 
son whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of 
Geneva, declared “the most remarkable woman that 
Europe has produced”; learned, rich, the author of Co - 
rinne and Allemagne, whose “talents in conversation,” 
says George Ticknor, “were perhaps the most remarkable 
of any person that ever lived.” 

Annie Louise Germaine Necker, born in Paris, April 
27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of 
Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the 
author of fifteen volumes; and Susanna, daughter of a 
Swiss pastor, beautiful, educated, and devotedly Christian. 
Necker had become rich in early life through banking, 
and had been made, by the republic of Geneva, her resi¬ 
dent minister at the Court of Versailles. 

When the throne of Louis seemed crumbling, because 
the people were tired of extravagance and heavy taxation, 
Necker was called to his aid, with the hope that economy 
and retrenchment would save the nation. He also loaned 
the government two million dollars. The home of the 
Neckers, in Paris, naturally became a social centre, which 
the mother of the family was well fitted to grace. Gib¬ 
bon had been deeply in love with her. 

He says: “I found her learned without pedantry, 


;6 


MADAME DE STAEL 


lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in 
manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by 
the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaint¬ 
ance. ... At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my 
dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon 
discovered that my father would not hear of this strange 
alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself desti¬ 
tute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded 
to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son.” 
Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friend¬ 
ship and admiration for Madame Necker. 

It was not strange, therefore, that Gibbon liked to be 
present in her salon, where Buffon, Hume, Diderot and 
D'Alembert were wont to gather. The child of such 
parents could scarcely be other than intellectual, sur¬ 
rounded by such gifted minds. Her mother, too, was a 
most systematic teacher, and each day the girl was 
obliged to sit by her side, erect, on a wooden stool, and 
learn difficult lessons. 

“She stood in great awe of her mother,” wrote Si- 
mond, the traveller, “but was exceedingly familiar with 
and extravagantly fond of her father. Madame Necker 
had no sooner left the room one day, after dinner, than 
the young girl, till then timidly decorous, suddenly seized 
her napkin, and threw it across the table at the head of 
her father, and then flying round to him, hung upon his 
neck, suffocating all his reproofs by her kisses.” When¬ 
ever her mother returned to the room, she at once be¬ 
came silent and restrained. 

The child early began to show literary talent, writing 
dramas, and making paper kings and queens to act her 
tragedies. This the mother thought to be wrong, and 
it was discontinued. But when she was twelve, the 
mother having somewhat relented, she wrote a play, which 
she and her companions acted in the drawing-room. 


MADAME DE STAEL 


77 


Grimm was so pleased with her attempts, that he sent ex¬ 
tracts to his correspondents throughout Europe. At fif¬ 
teen she wrote an essay on the Revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes , and another upon Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws. 

Overtaxing the brain with her continuous study, she 
became ill, and the physician, greatly to her delight, pre¬ 
scribed fresh air and sunshine. Here often she roamed 
from morning till night on their estate at St. Ouen. 
Madame Necker felt deeply the thwarting of her educa¬ 
tional plans, and years after, when her daughter had ac¬ 
quired distinction, said, “It is absolutely nothing com¬ 
pared to what I would have made it.” 

Monsieur Necker’s restriction of pensions and taxing 
of luxuries soon aroused the opposition of the aristoc¬ 
racy, and the weak but good-hearted King asked his min¬ 
ister to resign. Both wife and daughter felt the blow 
keenly, for both idolized him, so much so that the mother 
feared lest she be supplanted by her daughter. Madame 
de Stael says of her father, “From the moment of their 
marriage to her death, the thought of my mother domi¬ 
nated his life. He was not like other men in power, at¬ 
tentive to her by occasional tokens of regard, but by 
continual expressions of most tender and most delicate 
sentiment.” Of herself she wrote, “Our destinies would 
have united us forever, if fate had only made us con¬ 
temporaries.” At his death she said, “If he could be 
restored to me, I would give all my remaining years for 
six months.” To the last he was her idol. 

For the next few years the family travelled most of 
the time, Necker bringing out a book on the Finances , 
which had a sale at once of a hundred thousand copies. A 
previous book, the Compte Rendu au Roi, showing how 
for years the moneys of France had been wasted, had 
also a large sale. For these books, and especially for 
other correspondence, he was banished forty leagues from 


7 8 MADAME DE STAEL 

Paris. The daughter’s heart seemed well-nigh broken at 
this intelligence. Loving Paris, saying she would rather 
live there on “one hundred francs a year, and lodge in 
the fourth story,” than anywhere else in the world, how 
could she bear for years the isolation of the country ? 
Joseph II., King of Poland, and the King of Naples, of¬ 
fered Necker fine positions, but he declined. 

Mademoiselle Necker had come to womanhood, not 
beautiful, but with wonderful fascination and tact. She 
could compliment persons without flattery, was cordial 
and generous, and while the most brilliant talker, could 
draw to herself the thoughts and confidences of others. 
She had also written a book on Rousseau, which was 
much talked about. Pitt, of England, Count Fersen, of 
Sweden, and others, sought her in marriage, but she loved 
no person as well as her father. Her consent to marriage 
could be obtained only by the promise that she should 
never be obliged to leave him. 

Baron de Stael a man of learning and fine social posi¬ 
tion, ambassador from Sweden, and the warm friend of 
Gustavus, was ready to make any promises for the rich 
daughter of the Minister Necker. He was thirty-seven, 
she only a little more than half his age, twenty, but she 
accepted him because her parents were pleased. Going 
to Paris, she was, of course, received at Court, Marie 
Antoinette paying her much attention. Necker was soon 
recalled from exile to his old position. 

The funds rose thirty per cent., and he became the 
idol of the people. Soon representative government was 
demanded, and then, though the King granted it, the 
breach was widened. Necker, unpopular with the bad 
advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, 
and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of 
it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought 
back from Brussels, riding through the streets like “the 


MADAME DE STAEL 


79 

sovereign of a nation,” said his daughter. The people 
were wild with delight. 

But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revo¬ 
lution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; 
thousands of men, women, and even children armed with 
pikes. They reached the palace, killed the guards, and 
penetrated to the queen’s apartments, while some filled 
the court-yard and demanded bread. The brave Marie 
Antoinette appeared on the balcony leading her two chil¬ 
dren, while Lafayette knelt by her side and kissed her 
hand. But the people could not be appeased. 

Necker finding himself unable to serve his king longer, 
fled to his Swiss retreat at Coppet, and there remained till 
his death. Madame de Stael, as the wife of the Swedish 
ambassador, continued in the turmoil, \yriting her father 
daily, and taking an active interest in politics. “In Eng¬ 
land,” she said, “women are accustomed to be silent be¬ 
fore men when political questions are discussed. In 
France, they direct all conversation, and their minds read¬ 
ily acquire the facility and talent which this privilege re¬ 
quires.” Lafayette, Narbonne, and Talleyrand consulted 
with her. She wrote the principal part of Talleyrand’s 
report on Public Instruction in 1790. She procured the 
appointment of Narbonne to the ministry; and later, 
when Talleyrand was in exile, obtained his appointment 
to the Department of Foreign Affairs. 

Matters had gone from bad to worse. In 1792 the 
Swedish government suspended its embassy, and Madame 
de Stael prepared to fly, but stayed for a time to save 
her friends. The seven prisons of Paris were all 
crowded under the fearful reign of Danton and Marat. 
Great heaps of dead lay before every prison door. Dur¬ 
ing that Reign of Terror it is estimated that eighteen 
thousand six hundred persons perished by the guillotine. 
Whole squares were shot down. When the police visited 


8o 


MADAME DE STAEL 


her house, where some of the ministers were hidden, she 
met them graciously, urging that they must not violate 
the privacy of an ambassador’s house. When her friends 
were arrested, she went to the barbarous leaders, and 
with her eloquence begged for their safety, and thus 
saved the lives of many. 

At last she must leave the terror-stricken city. Sup¬ 
posing that her rank as the wife of a foreign ambassador 
would protect her, she started with a carriage and six 
horses, her servants in livery. At once a crowd of half- 
famished and haggard women crowded around, and threw 
themselves against the horses. The carriage was stopped, 
and the occupants were taken to the Assembly. She 
pleaded her case before the noted Robespierre, and then 
waited for six hours for the decision of the Commune, 
Meantime she saw the hired assassins pass beneath the 
windows, their bare arms covered with the blood of the 
slain. The mob attempted to pillage her carriage, but 
a strong man mounted the box and defended it. She 
learned afterward that it was the notorious Santerre, 
the person who later superintended the execution of Louis 
XVI., ordering his drummers to drown the last words of 
the dying King. Santerre had seen Necker distribute 
corn to the poor of Paris in a time of famine, and now 
he was befriending the daughter for this noble act. Fi¬ 
nally she was allowed to continue her journey, and 
reached Coppet with her baby, Auguste, well-nigh 
exhausted after this terrible ordeal. 

The Swiss home soon became a place of refuge for 
those who were flying from the horrors of the Commune. 
She kept a faithful agent, who knew the mountain passes, 
busy in this work of mercy. 

The following year, 1793, longing for a change from 
these dreadful times, she visited England, and received 
much attention from prominent persons, among them 



MADAME DE STAEL. 

From the painting by Mile. Godefroy, 













MADAME DE STAEL 


81 


Fanny Burny, the author of Evelina, who owned “that 
she had never heard conversation before. The most ani¬ 
mated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most spark¬ 
ling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm 
her.” 

On January 21 of this year, the unfortunate King 
had met his death on the scaffold before an immense 
throng of people. Necker had begged to go before the 
Convention and plead for his king, but was refused. 
Madame de Stael wrote a vigorous appeal to the nation in 
behalf of the beautiful and tender-hearted Marie Antoin¬ 
ette; but on September 16, 1793, at four o’clock in the 
morning, in an open cart, in the midst of thirty thousand 
troops and a noisy rabble, she, too, was borne to the scaf¬ 
fold. 

The next year, Madame Necker died at Coppet, whis¬ 
pering to her husband, “We shall see each other in 
Heaven.” “She looked heavenward,” said Necker in a 
most affecting manner, “listening while I prayed; then, 
in dying, raised the finger of her left hand, which wore 
the ring I had given her, to remind me of the pledge en¬ 
graved upon it, to love her forever.” His devotion to 
her was beautiful. “No language,” says his daughter, 
“can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wake¬ 
fulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting 
her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, 
for hours together, standing in the same position for fear 
of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from 
her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his re¬ 
turn, of her attendant, if she had asked for him? She 
could no longer speak, but made an effort to say ‘yes, 
yes.’ ” 

When the Revolution was over, and France had be¬ 
come a republic, Sweden sent back her ambassador, Baron 
de Stael, and his wife returned to him at Paris. Again 


82 


MADAME DE STAEL 


her salon became the centre for the great men of the time. 
She loved liberty, and believed in the republican form of 
government. She had written her book upon the Influ¬ 
ence of the Passions on the Happiness of Individuals 
and Nations, prompted by the horrors of the Revolution, 
and it was considered “irresistible in energy and dazzling 
in thought.” 

She was also devoting much time to her child, Auguste, 
developing him without punishment, thinking that there 
had been too much rigor in her own childhood. lie well 
repaid her for her gentleness and trust, and was insepar¬ 
able from her through life, becoming a noble Christian 
man, and the helper of all good causes. Meantime Ma¬ 
dame de Stael saw with alarm the growing influence of 
the young Corsican officer, Bonaparte. The chief execu¬ 
tive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, 
and he had control of the army. He had won brilliant 
victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in¬ 
chief of the expedition against Egypt. He now returned 
to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council 
of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the 
point of the bayonet, made the government into a con¬ 
sulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and 
lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style. 

All this time Madame de Stael felt the egotism and 
heartlessness of Napoleon. Her salon became more 
crowded than ever with those who had their fears for 
the future. “The most eloquent of the Republican ora¬ 
tors were those who borrowed from her most of their 
ideas and telling phrases. Most of them went forth from 
her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with 
resolution to pronounce them—a courage which was alsoi 
derived from her.” Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the 
brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and 


MADAME DE STAEL 83 

often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their 
brother. 

When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the 
“rising tyranny,” Napoleon suspected that she had 
prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time de¬ 
claring that he loved the Republic, and would always de¬ 
fend it! He said persons always came away from De 
S tael's home “less his friends than when they entered.” 
About this time her book. Literature Ccnsidered in its 
Relation to Social Institutions, was published, and made 
a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge 
and power of thought. Its analysis of Greek and Latin 
literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, Ger¬ 
man, and French, astonished everybody because written 
by a woman! 

Soon after, Necker published his Last Views of Poli¬ 
tics and Finance in which he wrote against the tyranny 
of a single man. At once Napoleon caused a sharp let¬ 
ter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics 
to the First Consul, “who was alone able to govern 
France,” and threatening his daughter with exile for her 
supposed aid in his book. She saw the wisdom of escap¬ 
ing from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately 
hastened to Coppet. A few months later, in the winter 
of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de 
Stael, who was ill, and from whom she had separated 
because he was spending all her fortune and that of her 
three children. He died on the journey. Virtually ban¬ 
ished from France, she now wrote her Delphine, a bril¬ 
liant novel which was widely read. 

Her home at Coppet became the home of many great 
people. Sismondi, the author of the History of the 
Italian Republics , and Literature of Southern Europe, 
encouraged by her, wrote here several of his famous 


8 4 


MADAME DE STAEL 


works. Bonstetten made his home here for years. Schle- 
gel, the greatest critic of his age, became the teacher of her 
children, and a most intimate friend. Benjamin Constant, 
the author and statesman, was here. All repaired to their 
rooms for work in the morning, and in the evening en¬ 
joyed philosophic, literary, and political discussions. 

Bonstetten said: “In seeing her, in hearing her, I feel 
myself electrified. . . . She daily becomes greater and 
better; but souls of great talent have great sufferings: 
they are solitary in the world, like Mont Blanc.’’ 

In the autumn of 1803, longing for Paris, she ventured 
to within ten leagues and hired a quiet home. Word was 
soon borne to Napoleon that the road to her house was 
thronged with visitors. He at once sent an officer with 
a letter signed by himself, exiling her to forty leagues 
from Paris, and commanding her to leave within twenty- 
four hours. 

At once she fled to Germany. At Frankfort her little 
daughter was dangerously ill. “I knew no person in the 
city,” she writes. “I did not know the language; and 
the physician to whom I confided my child could not 
speak French. But my father shared my trouble; he 
consulted physicians at Geneva, and sent me their pre¬ 
scriptions. Oh, what would become of a mother trem¬ 
bling for the life of her child, if it were not for prayer!” 

Going to Weimar, she met Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, 
and other noted men. At Berlin, the greatest attention 
was shown her. The beautiful Louise of Prussia wel¬ 
comed her heartily. During this exile her father died, 
with his latest breath saying, “She has loved me dearly! 
She has loved me dearly!” On his death-bed he wrote a 
letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in no¬ 
wise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. 
It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did 
not flatter him; therefore he wished her out of the way. 


MADAME DE STAEL 


85 


Madame de Stael was for a time completely overcome 
by Necker’s death. She wore his picture on her person 
as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, 
and then she imagined it might console her daughter in 
her illness. Giving it to her, she said, “Gaze upon it, 
gaze upon it, when you are in pain.” 

She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beauti¬ 
ful descriptions for her Corinne, and finally returning to 
Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was pub¬ 
lished in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, “its success was 
instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a 
poem, the romance of Corinne is an immortal monu¬ 
ment.” Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, called the 
author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and 
Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or 
country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused 
a scathing criticism on Corinne to appear; indeed, it was 
declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the 
Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise 
of Napoleon in Corinne, and she would be welcomed 
back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and 
she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France. 

Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, 
and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and 
hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her cor¬ 
respondence with Goethe: “The gentlemen stood around 
the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one 
another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in 
French, ‘Your adorers quite suffocate me.’ ” 

While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had 
an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his 
mother. “Your mother,” said Napoleon, “could not be 
six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send 
her to Bicetre or the Temple. I should regret this neces¬ 
sity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a 


86 


MADAME DE STAEL 


little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as 
long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you 
wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will 
have the world about her.” 

On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writ¬ 
ing her Allemagne, for which she had been making re¬ 
searches for four years. She wished it published in 
Paris, as Corinne had been, and submitted it to the cen¬ 
sors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments 
they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten 
thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime re¬ 
moving to France, within her proscribed limits, that she 
might correct the proof-sheets. 

What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order 
the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France 
in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, 
who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, 
or they would be arrested. The only reason given for de¬ 
stroying the work was the fact that she had been silent 
about the great but egotistical Emperor. 

Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all 
this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her 
life. In the social gatherings made for her, she ob¬ 
served a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in 
health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in 
face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though 
only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer 
was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in 
spirit by her presence. She sympathized with his mis¬ 
fortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was 
lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what 
she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. 
When discouraged by his friends, he replied, “I will love 
her so much that I will finish by making her marry me.” 

They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a 


MADAME DE STAEL 


87 


singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult 
to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a 
passing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a 
gifted mind and noble heart,—such a marriage stands 
the test of time. 

The marriage was kept secret from all save a few in¬ 
timate friends, Madame de Stael fearing that if the news 
reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to 
France. Her fears were only too well founded. Schle- 
gel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy 
for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under 
any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or 
entering any region annexed to France. She was ad¬ 
vised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be im¬ 
prisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death. 

The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. 
Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She 
longed to reach England, but there was an edict against 
any French subject entering that country without special 
permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way 
to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and 
Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt 
it. She passed an hour in prayer by her parent’s tomb, 
kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap 
herself in, should death come. 

On May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her chil¬ 
dren, began their flight by carriage, not telling the serv¬ 
ants at the chateau but that they should return for the 
next meal. 

They reached Vienna, June 6, and were at once put 
under surveillance. Everywhere she saw placards admon¬ 
ishing the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to 
make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his 
arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours 
in any place. Once Madame de Stael was so overcome by 


88 


MADAME DE STAEL 


this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was 
obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside 
till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and 
death. 

Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was 
cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. 
From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cor¬ 
dial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became 
king. Afterward she spent four months in England, 
bringing out Allemagne. Here she received a perfect 
ovation. At Lord Lansdowne’s the first ladies in the 
kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse 
of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: “The whole fash¬ 
ionable and literary world is occupied with Madame de 
Stael, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of 
any age.” Very rare must be the case where a woman of 
fine mind does not have many admirers among gentle¬ 
men. 

Her Allemagne was published in 1813, the manuscript 
having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Rus¬ 
sia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated 
of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and 
art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its 
religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon 
translated into all the principal tongues of Europe. La¬ 
martime said: “Her style, without losing any of its 
youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated 
with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the 
evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. 
This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it 
adores. . . . Her name will live as long as literature, as 
long as the history of her country.” 

Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. 
Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter 
of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had alxli- 


MADAME DE STAEL 


89 


cated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately re¬ 
turned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor 
Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile 
under “Napoleon the Little.” Again to her salon came 
kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, 
and others. 

But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. 
He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he 
would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could 
not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beau¬ 
tiful, married to the Due de Broglie, a leading statesman, 
and was happy in her happiness. Rocca’s health was 
failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time. 

In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone 
from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de 
Stael was broken with her trials. She seemed to grow 
more and more frail, till the end came. She said fre¬ 
quently, “My father awaits me on the other shore.” To 
Chateaubriand she said, “I have loved God, my father, 
and my country.” She could not and would not 
go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look 
upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would 
awaken her often. “Good night,” she said, and it was 
forever. She never awakened. They buried her beside 
her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca 
died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. “I 
hoped,” he said, “to have died in her arms.” 

Her little son, and Rocca’s, five years old, was cared 
for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Ma¬ 
dame de Stael’s death, her Considerations on the French 
Revolution and Ten Years of Exile were published. OE 
the former, Sainte-Beuve says: “Its publication was an 
event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the au¬ 
thoress. Its politics were destined to long and passionate 
discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only 


90 MADAME DE STAEL 

from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her 
tomb.” 

Chateaubriand said, “Her death made one of those 
breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces 
once in an age, and which can never be closed.” 

As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving 
love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No 
wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake 
Geneva. 


ROSA BONHEUR 


In a simple home in Paris could have been seen, in 
1829, Raymond Bonheur and his little family,—Rosa, 
seven years old, Auguste, Isadore, and Juliette. He was 
a man of fine talent in painting, but obliged to spend 
his time in giving drawing-lessons to support his children. 
His wife, Sophie, gave lessons on the piano, going from 
house to house all day long, and sometimes sewing half 
the night, to earn a little more for the necessities of life. 

Hard work and poverty soon bore its usual fruit, and 
the tired young mother died in 1833. The three oldest 
children were sent to board with a plain woman, “La 
mere Catherine,” in the Champs Elysees, and the young¬ 
est was placed with relatives. For two years this good 
woman cared for the children, sending them to school, 
though she was greatly troubled because Rosa persisted 
in playing in the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, gather¬ 
ing her arms full of daisies and marigolds, rather than to 
be shut up in a schoolroom. “I never spent an hour of 
fine weather indoors during the whole of the two years,” 
she has often said since those days. 

Finally the father married again and brought the chil¬ 
dren home. The two boys were placed in school, and M. 
Bonheur paid their way by giving drawing-lessons three 
times a week in the institution. If Rosa did not love 
school, she must be taught something useful, and she was 
accordingly placed in a sewing establishment to become 
a seamstress. 

The child hated sewing, ran the needle into her fin¬ 
gers at every stitch, cried for the fresh air and sunshine, 

91 


ROSA BONHEUR 


9 2 y 

and finally, becoming pale and sickly, was taken back 
to the Bonheur home. The anxious painter would try 
his child once more in school; so he arranged that she 
should attend, with compensation met in the same way 
as for his boys. Rosa soon became a favorite with the 
girls in the Fauborg St. Antoine School, especially because 
she could draw such witty caricatures of the teachers, 
which she pasted against the wall, with bread chewed into 
the consistency of putty. The teachers were not pleased, 
but so struck were they with the vigor and originality of 
the drawings, that they carefully preserved the sketches 
in an album. 

The girl was far from happy. Naturally sensitive— 
as what poet or painter was ever born otherwise?—she 
could not bear to wear a calico dress and coarse shoes, and 
eat with an iron spoon from a tin cup, when the other 
girls wore handsome dresses, and had silver mugs and 
spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected her books, and 
finally became so ill that she was obliged to be taken 
home. 

And now Raymond Bonheur very wisely decided not 
to make plans for his child for a time, but see what was 
her natural tendency. It was well that he made this de¬ 
cision in time, before she had been spoiled by his well- 
meant but poor intentions. 

Left to herself, she constantly hung about her father’s 
studio, now drawing, now modeling, copying whatever 
she saw him do. She seemed never to be tired, but sang 
at her work all the day long. 

Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to the fact that his 
daughter had great talent. He began to teach her care¬ 
fully, to make her accurate in drawing, and correct in 
perspective. Then he sent her to the Louvre to copy the 
works of the old masters. Here she worked with the 
greatest industry and enthusiasm, not observing anything 


ROSA BONHEUR 


93 


that was going on around her. Said the director of the 
Louvre, “I have never seen an example of such applica¬ 
tion and such ardor for work. ,, 

One day an elderly English gentleman stopped beside 
her easel, and said: “Your copy, my child, is superb, 
faultless. Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy 
that you will be a great artist.” How glad those few 
words made her! She went home thinking over to herself 
the determination she had made in the school when she ate 
with her iron spoon, that sometime she would be as fa¬ 
mous as her schoolmates, and have some of the comforts 
of life. 

Her copies of the old masters were soon sold, and 
though they brought small prices, she gladly gave the 
money to her father, who needed it now more than ever. 
His second wife had two sons when he married her, and 
now they had a third, Germain, and every cent that Rosa 
could earn was needed to help support seven children. “La 
mamiche,” as they called the new mother, was an excel¬ 
lent manager of the meagre finances, and filled her place 
well. 

Rosa was now seventeen, loving landscape, historical, 
and genre painting, perhaps equally; but happening to 
paint a goat, she was so pleased in the work, that she de¬ 
termined to make animal painting a specialty. Having 
no money to procure models, she must needs make long 
walks into the country on foot to the farms. She would 
take a piece of bread in her pocket, and generally forget 
to eat it. After working all day, she would come home 
tired, often drenched with rain, and her shoes covered 
with mud. 

She took other means to study animals. In the out¬ 
skirts of Paris were great abattoirs, or slaughterpens. 
Though the girl tenderly loved animals, and shrank 
from the sight of suffering, she forced herself to see the 


94 


ROSA BONHEUR 


killing, that she might know how to depict the death 
agony on canvas. Though obliged to mingle more or 
less with drovers and butchers, no indignity was ever 
offered her. As she sat on a bundle of hay, with her 
colors about her, they would crowd around to look at 
the pictures, and regard her with honest pride. The 
world soon learns whether a girl is in earnest about her 
work, and treats her accordingly. 

The Bonheur family had moved to the sixth story of 
a tenement house in the Rue Rum fort, now the Rue Mal- 
esherbes. The sons, Auguste and Isadore, had both be¬ 
come artists; the former a painter, the latter a sculptor. 
Even little Juliette was learning to paint. Rosa was 
working hard all day at her easel, and at night was illus¬ 
trating books, or molding little groups of animals for 
the figure-dealers. All the family were happy despite 
their poverty, because they had congenial work. 

On the roof, Rosa improvised a sort of garden, with 
honeysuckles, sweet-peas, and nasturtiums, and here they 
kept a sheep, with long, silky wool, for a model. Very 
often Isadore would take him on his back and carry him 
down the six flights of stairs,—the day of elevators had 
not dawned,—and after he had enjoyed grazing, would 
bring him back to his garden home. It was a docile 
creature, and much loved by the whole family. For Ro¬ 
sa’s birds, the brothers constructed a net, which they 
hung outside the window, and then opened the cage into 
it. 

At nineteen Rosa was to test the world, and see what 
the critics would say. She sent to the Fine Arts Exhibi¬ 
tion two pictures, '‘Goats and Sheep” and “Two Rabbits.’' 
The public was pleased, and the press gave kind notices. 
The next year “Animals in a Pasture” a “Cow Lying 
in a Meadow,” and a “Horse for Sale,” attracted still 
more attention. Two years later she exhibited twelve 


ROSA BONHEUR 


95 


pictures, some of her father and brother being hung on 
either side of hers, the first time they had been admitted. 
More and more the critics praised, and the pathway of 
the Bonheur family grew less thorny. 

Then, in 1849, when she was twenty-seven, came the 
triumph. Her magnificent picture, “Cantal Oxen,” took 
the gold medal, and was purchased by England. Horace 
Vernet, the president of the commission of awards, in the 
midst of a brilliant assembly, proclaimed the new laureate, 
and gave her, in behalf of the government, a superb 
Sevres vase. 

Raymond Bonheur seemed to become young again at 
this fame of his child. It brought honors to him also, 
for he was at once made director of the government school 
of design for girls. But the release from poverty and 
anxiety came too late, and he died the same year, greatly 
lamented by his family. “He had grand ideas,” said his 
daughter, “and had he not been obliged to give lessons for 
our support, he would have been more known, and to-day 
acknowledged with other masters.” 

Rosa was made director in his place, and Juliette be¬ 
came a professor in the school. This same year appeared 
her “Plowing Scene in the Nivernais,” now in the Luxem¬ 
bourg Gallery, thought to be her most important work 
after her “Horse Fair.” Orders now poured in upon her, 
so that she could not accede to half the requests for work. 
A rich Hollander offered her one thousand crowns for a 
painting which she could have wrought in two hours; 
but she refused. 

Four years later, after eighteen long months of pre¬ 
paratory studies, her “Horse Fair” was painted. This 
created the greatest enthusiasm both in England and 
America. It was sold to a gentleman in England for 
eight thousand dollars, and was finally purchased by A. T. 
Stewart, of New York, for his famous collection. Later 


96 


ROSA BONHEUR 


it was presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No 
one who has seen this picture will ever forget the action 
and vigor of these Normandy horses. In painting it, a 
petted horse, it is said, stepped back upon the canvas, 
putting his hoof through it, thus spoiling the work of 
months. 

So greatly was this picture admired, that Napoleon 
III. was urged to bestow upon her the Cross of the Le¬ 
gion of Honor, entitled her from French usage. Though 
she was invited to the state dinner at the Tuileries, al¬ 
ways given to artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts 
has awarded its highest honors, Napoleon had not the 
courage to give it to her, lest public opinion might not 
agree with him in conferring it upon a woman. Pos¬ 
sibly he felt, more than the world knew, the insecurity of 
his throne. 

Henry Bacon, in the Century, thus describes the way in 
which Rosa Bonheur finally received the badge of distinc¬ 
tion. “The Emperor, leaving Paris for a short summer 
excursion in 1865, left the Empress as Regent. From 
the imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a 
short drive to By (the home of Mademoiselle Bonheur). 
The Empress entered the studio where Mademoiselle Rosa 
was at work. She arose to receive the visitor, who threw 
her arms about her neck and kissed her. It was only 
a short interview. The imperial vision had departed, the 
rumble of the carriage and the crack of the outriders’ 
whips were lost in the distance. Then, and not till then, 
did the artist discover that as the Empress had given the 
kiss, she had pinned upon her blouse the Cross of the Le¬ 
gion of Honor.” Since then she has received the Leopold 
Cross of Honor from the King of Belgium, said to be 
the first ever conferred upon a woman; also a decoration 
from the King of Spain. Her brother Auguste, now 



ROSA BONHEUR 






ROSA BONHEUR 


97 

dead, received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 
1867, two years after Rosa. 

In preparing to paint the “Horse Fair” and other simi¬ 
lar pictures, which brought her much into the company 
of men, she found it wise to dress in male costume. A 
laughable incident is related of this mode of dress. One 
day when she returned from the country, she found a 
messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness 
of one of her young friends. Rosa did not wait to 
change her male attire, but hastened to the bedside of the 
young lady. In a few minutes after her arrival, the doc¬ 
tor, who had been sent for, entered, and seeing a young 
man, as he supposed, seated on the side of the bed, with 
his arm round the neck of the sick girl, thought he was 
an intruder, and retreated with all possible speed. “Oh! 
run after him! He thinks you are my lover, and has 
gone and left me to die!” cried the sick girl. Rosa flew 
down stairs, and soon returned with the modest doctor. 

She also used this mannish costume for her long jour¬ 
neys over the Pyrenees into Spain or in the Scottish High¬ 
lands. She was always accompanied by her most inti¬ 
mate friend, Mademoiselle Micas, herself an artist of re¬ 
pute. 

Sometimes in the Pyrenees these two ladies saw no one 
for six weeks but muleteers with their mules. The peo¬ 
ple in these lonely mountain passes live entirely upon the 
curdled milk of sheep. Once Rosa Bonheur and her 
friend were nearly starving, when Mademoiselle Micas 
obtained a quantity of frogs, and covering the hind legs 
with leaves, roasted them over a fire. On these they lived 
for two days. 

In Scotland she painted her exquisite “Denizens of the 
Mountains,” “Morning in the Highlands,” and “Crossing 
a Loch in the Highlands.” In England she was treated 


9 8 


ROSA BONHEUR 


like a princess. Sir Edwin Landseer, whom some per¬ 
sons thought she would marry, is reported to have said, 
when he first looked upon her “Horse Fair,” “It surpasses 
me, though it’s a little hard to beaten by a woman.” 

For years she lived in Rue d’Assas, a retired street 
half made up of gardens. Here she had one of the most 
beautiful studios of Paris, the room lighted from the 
ceiling, the walls covered with paintings, with here and 
there old armor, tapestry, hats, cloaks, sandals, and skins 
of tigers, leopards, foxes and oxen on the floor. One 
Friday, the day on which she received guests, one of her 
friends, coming earlier than usual, found her fast asleep 
on her favorite skin, that of a magnificent ox, with stuffed 
head and spreading horns. She had come in tired from 
the School of Design, and had thrown herself down to 
rest. Usually after greeting her friends she would say, 
“Allow me to resume my brush; we can talk just as well 
together.” For those who have any great work to do in 
this world, there is little time for visiting; interruptions 
cannot be permitted. No wonder Carlyle groaned when 
some person had taken two hours of his time. He could 
better have spared money to the visitor. 

For several years Rosa Bonheur lived near Fon¬ 
tainebleau, in the Chateau By. Henry Bacon says: “The 
chateau dates from the time of Louis XV., and the garden 
is still laid out in the style of Le Notre. Since it has 
been in the present proprietor’s possession, a quaint, pic¬ 
turesque brick building, containing the carriage house and 
coachman’s lodge on the first floor, and the studio on the 
second, has been added; the roof of the main building has 
been raised, and the chapel changed into an orangery: be¬ 
side the main carriage-entrance, which is closed by iron 
gates and wooden blinds, is a postern gate, with a small 
grated opening, like those found in convents. The blinds 
to the gate and the slide to the grating are generally closed, 


ROSA BONHEUR 


99 


and the only communication with the outside world is 
by the bell-wire, terminating in a ring beside the gate. 
Ring, and the jingle of the bell is at once echoed by the 
barking of numerous dogs,—the hounds and bassets in 
chorus, the grand Saint Bernard in slow measure, like the 
bassdrum in an orchestra. After the first excitement 
among the dogs has begun to abate, a remarkably small 
house-pet that has been somewhere in the interior arrives 
upon the scene, and with his sharp, shrill voice again starts 
and leads the canine chorus. By this time the eagle in his 
cage has awakened, and the parrot, whose cage is built 
into the corner of the studio looking upon the street, 
adds to the racket. 

“Behind the house is a large park divided from the 
forest by a high wall; a lawn and flower-beds are laid 
out near the buildings; and on the lawn, in pleasant 
weather, graze a magnificent bull and cow, which are kept 
as models. In a wire enclosure are two chamois from the 
Pyrenees, and further removed from the house, in the 
wooded part of the park, are enclosures for sheep and 
deer, each of which knows its mistress. Even the stag, 
bearing its six-branched antlers, receives her caresses like 
a pet dog. At the end of one of the linden avenues is 
a splendid bronze, by Isadore Bonheur, of a Gaul attack¬ 
ing a lion. 

“The studio is very large, with a huge chimney at one 
end, the supports of which are life-size dogs, modeled 
by Isadore Bonheur. Portraits of the father and mother 
in oval frames hang at each side, and a pair of gigantic 
horns ornaments the centre. The room is decorated with 
stuffed heads of animals of various kinds,—boars, bears, 
wolves, and oxen; and birds perch in every convenient 
place.” 

When Prussia conquered France, and swept through 
this town, orders were given that Rosa Bonheur’s home 


100 


ROSA BONHEUR 


and paintings be carefully preserved. Even her servants 
went unmolested. The peasants idolized the great woman 
who lived in the chateau, and were eager to serve her. 

The close of her long life found her still quietly and 
unobtrusively at work. Rosa Bonheur laid down her 
busy brush at her home on May 25, 1899, but her un¬ 
dying monuments are the marvelous canvases she has 
given to the world. 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


In a plain home, in the town of Litchfield, Conn., was 
born, June 14, 1811, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The hou.se 
was well-nigh full of little ones before her coming. She 
was the seventh child, while the oldest was but eleven years 
old. 

Her father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, a man of remarkable 
mind and sunshiny heart, was preaching earnest sermons 
in his own and in all the neighboring towns, on the mu¬ 
nificent salary of five hundred dollars a year. Her 
mother, Roxana Beecher, was a woman whose beautiful 
life has been an inspiration to thousands. With an edu¬ 
cation superior for those times, she came into the home 
of the young minister with a strength of mind and heart 
that made her his companion and reliance. 

There were no carpets on the floors till the girl-wife 
laid down a piece of cotton cloth on the parlor, and 
painted it in oils, with a border and a bunch of roses 
and other flowers in the centre. When one of the good 
deacons came to visit them, the preacher said, “Walk in, 
deacon, walk in!” 

“Why, I can’t,” said he, “ ’thout steppin’ on’t.” Then 
he exclaimed, in admiration, “D’ye think ye can have 
all that, and heaven too?' } 

So meagre was the salary for the increasing household, 
that Roxana urged that a select school be started; and 
in this she taught French, drawing, painting, and em¬ 
broidery, besides the higher English branches. With all 
this work she found time to make herself the idol of her 

children. While Henry Ward hung round her neck, she 

101 


102 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


made dolls for little Harriet, and read to them from 
Walter Scott and Washington Irving. 

These were enchanting days for the enthusiastic girl 
with brown curls and blue eyes. She roamed over the 
meadows, and through the forests, gathering wild flow¬ 
ers in the spring or nuts in the fall, being educated, as 
she afterwards said, “first and foremost by Nature, won¬ 
derful, beautiful, ever-changing as she is in that cloud- 
land, Litchfield. There were the crisp apples of the pink 
azalea,—honeysuckle-apples, we called them; there were 
scarlet wintergreen berries; there were pink shell blossoms 
of trailing arbutus, and feathers of ground pine; there 
were blue and white and yellow violets, and crows foot, 
and blood root, and wild anemone, and other quaint forest 
treasures.” 

A single incident, told by herself in later years, will 
show the frolic-loving spirit of the girl, and the gentle¬ 
ness of Roxana Beecher. “Mother was an enthusiastic 
horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means al¬ 
lowed. Her brother John, in New York, had just sent 
her a small parcel of fine tulip-bulbs. I remember rum¬ 
maging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery 
one day when she was gone out, and being strongly 
seized with the idea that they were good to eat, and us¬ 
ing all the little English I then possessed to persuade 
my brothers that these were onions, such as grown peo¬ 
ple ate, and would be very nice for us. So we fell to 
and devoured the whole; and I recollect being somewhat 
disappointed in the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that 
onions were not as nice as I had supposed. Then moth¬ 
er’s serene face appeared at the nursery door, and we all 
ran toward her, and with one voice began to tell our dis¬ 
covery and achievement. We had found this bag of 
onions and had eaten them all up. 

“There was not even a momentary expression of impa- 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


103 


tience, but she sat down and said, ‘My dear children, what 
you have done makes mamma very sorry; those were not 
onion roots, but roots of beautiful flowers; and if you had 
let them alone, ma would have had next summer in the 
garden, great, beautiful red and yellow flowers, such as 
you never saw.’ I remember how drooping and disap¬ 
pointed we all grew at this picture, and how sadly we re¬ 
garded the empty paper bag.” 

When Harriet was five years old, a deep shadow fell 
upon the happy household. Eight little children were 
gathered around the bedside of the dying mother. When 
they cried and sobbed, she told them, with inexpressible 
sweetness, that “God could do more for them than she 
had ever done or could do, and that they must trust Him,” 
and urged her six sons to become ministers of the Gospel. 
When her heart-broken husband repeated to her the verse, 
“You are now come unto Mount Zion, unto the city of 
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an in¬ 
numerable company of angels; to the general assembly and 
church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and 
to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Cove¬ 
nant,” she looked up into his face with a beautiful smile, 
and closed her eyes forever. That smile Mr. Beecher 
never forgot to his dying day. 

The whole family seemed crushed by the blow. Little 
Henry (later the great preacher), who had been told 
that his mother had been buried in the ground, and also 
that she had gone to heaven, was found one morning dig¬ 
ging with all his might under his sister’s window, saying, 
“I’m going to heaven, to find ma.” 

So much did Mr. Beecher miss her counsel and good 
judgment, that he sat down and wrote her a long letter, 
pouring out his whole soul, hoping somehow that she, his 
guardian angel, though dead, might see it. A year later 


104 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


he wrote a friend: “There is a sensation of loss which 
nothing alleviates—a solitude which no society interrupts. 
Amid the smiles and prattle of children, and the kindness 
of sympathizing friends, I am alone; Roxana is not here. 
She partakes in none of my joys, and bears with me none 
of my sorrows. I do not murmur; I only feel daily, con¬ 
stantly, and with deepening impression, how much I have 
had for which to be thankful, and how much I have 
lost. . . . The whole year after her death was a year of 
great emptiness, as if there was not motive enough in 
the world to move me. I used to pray earnestly to God 
either to take me away, or to restore to me that interest in 
things and susceptibility to motive I had had before.” 

Once, when sleeping in the room where she died, he 
dreamed that Roxana came and stood beside him, and 
“smiled on me as with a smile from heaven. With that 
smile,” he said, “all my sorrow passed away. I awoke 
joyful, and I was lighthearted for weeks after.” 

Harriet went to live for a time with her aunt and 
grandmother, and then came back to the lonesome home, 
into which Mr. Beecher had felt the necessity of bring¬ 
ing a new mother. She was a refined and excellent 
woman, and won the respect and affection of the family. 
At first Harriet, with a not unnatural feeling of injury, 
said to her: “Because you have come and married my 
father, when I am big enough, I mean to go and marry 
your father”; but she afterwards learned to love her very 
much. 

At seven, with a remarkably retentive memory,—a 
thing which many of us spoil by trashy reading, or al¬ 
lowing our time and attention to be distracted by the 
trifles of every-day life,—Harriet had learned twenty- 
seven hymns and two long chapters of the Bible. She was 
exceedingly fond of reading, but there was little in a 
poor minister’s library to attract a child. She found 



HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 




HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


105 

Bell's Sermons, and Toplady on Predestination. “Then,” 
she says, “there was a side closet full of documents, a 
weltering ocean of pamphlets, in which I dug and toiled 
for hours, to be repaid by disinterring a delicious morsel 
of a Don Quixote, that had once been a book, but was now 
lying in forty or fifty dissecta membra, amid Calls, Ap¬ 
peals, Essays, Reviews, and Rejoinders. The turning up 
of such a fragment seemed like the rising of an enchanted 
island out of an ocean of mud.” Finally Ivanhoe was 
obtained, and she and her brother George read it through 
seven times. 

At twelve, we find her in the school of Mr. John P. 
Brace, a well-known teacher, where she developed great 
fondness for composition. At the exhibition at the close 
of the year, it was the custom for all the parents to come 
and listen to the wonderful productions of their children. 
From the list of subjects given, Harriet had chosen, “Can 
the Immortality of the Soul be proved by the Light of 
Nature?” 

“When mine was read,” she says, “I noticed that 
father brightened and looked interested. ‘Who wrote that 
composition?’ he asked of Mr. Brace. *Your daughter, 
sir!’ was the answer. There was no mistaking father’s 
face when he was pleased, and to have interested him was 
past all juvenile triumphs.” 

A new life was now open to Harriet. Her only sister 
Catherine a brilliant and noble girl, was engaged to Pro¬ 
fessor Fisher of Yale College. They were to be mar¬ 
ried on his return from a European tour, but alas! the 
Albion, on which he sailed, went to pieces on the rocks, 
and all on board, save one, perished. Her betrothed was 
never heard from. For months all hope seemed to go 
out of Catharine’s life, and then, with a strong will, she 
took up a course of mathematical study, his favorite study, 
and Latin under her brother Edward. She was now 


io6 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

twenty-three. Life was not to be along the pleasant paths 
she had hoped, but she must make it tell for the future. 

With remarkable energy, she went to Hartford, Conn., 
where her brother was teaching, and thoroughly impressed 
with the belief that God had a work for her to do for 
girls, she raised several thousand dollars and built the 
Hartford Female Seminary. Her brothers had college 
doors opened to them; why, she reasoned, should not 
women have equal opportunities? Society wondered of 
what possible use Latin and moral philosophy could be to 
girls, but they admired Miss Beecher, and let her do as 
she pleased. Students poured in, and the seminary soon 
overflowed. My own school life in that beloved institu¬ 
tion, years afterward, I shall never forget. 

And now the little twelve-old Harriet came down from 
Litchfield to attend Catharine’s school, and soon became 
a pupil-teacher, that the burden of support might not 
fall too heavily upon the father. Other children had 
come into the Beecher home, and with a salary of eight 
hundred dollars, poverty could not be other than a con¬ 
stant attendant. Once when the family were greatly 
straitened for money, while Henry and Charles were in 
College, the new mother went to bed weeping, but the 
father said, “Well, the Lord always has taken care of 
me, and I am sure He always will,” and was soon fast 
asleep. The next morning, Sunday, a letter was handed 
in at the door, containing a $100 bill, and no name. It 
was a thank-offering for the conversion of a child. 

Mr. Beecher, with all his poverty, could not help being 
generous. His wife, by close economy, had saved twenty- 
five dollars to buy a new overcoat for him. Handing him 
the roll of bills, he started out to purchase the garment, 
but stopped on the way to attend a missionary meeting. 
His heart warmed as he stayed, and when the contribu¬ 
tion-box was passed, he put in the roll of bills for the 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


107 

Sandwich Islanders, and went home with his threadbare 
coat! 

Three years later, Mr. Beecher, who had now become 
widely known as a revivalist and brilliant preacher, was 
called to Boston, where he remained for six years. His 
six sermons on intemperance had stirred the whole coun¬ 
try. 

Though he loved Boston, his heart often turned to¬ 
ward the great West, and he longed to help save her 
young men. When, therefore, he was asked to go to 
Ohio and become the president of Lane Theological Semi¬ 
nary at Cincinnati, he accepted. Singularly dependent 
upon his family, Catharine and Harriet must needs go 
with him to the new home. The journey was a toilsome 
one, over the corduroy roads and across the mountains by 
stagecoach. Finally they were settled in a pleasant house 
on Walnut Hills, one of the suburbs of the city, and the 
sisters opened another school. 

Four years later, in 1836, Harriet, now twenty-five, 
married the professor of biblical criticism and Oriental 
literature in the seminary, Calvin E. Stowe, a learned and 
able man. 

Meantime the question of slavery had been agitating 
the minds of Christian people. Cincinnati being near 
the border-line of Kentucky, was naturally the battle¬ 
ground of ideas. Slaves fled into the free State and were 
helped into Canada by means of the “Underground Rail¬ 
road,” which was in reality only a friendly house about 
every ten miles, where the colored people could be secreted 
during the day, and then carried in wagons to the next 
“station” in the night. 

Lane Seminary became a hot-bed of discussion. Many 
of the Southern students freed their slaves, or helped to 
establish schools for colored children in Cincinnati, and 
were disinherited by their fathers in consequence. Dr. 


io8 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


Bailey, a Christian man who attempted to carry on a 
fair discussion of the question in his paper, had his 
presses broken twice and thrown into the river. The feel¬ 
ing became so intense, that the houses of free colored 
people were burned, some killed, and the seminary was in 
danger from the mob. The members of Professor 
Stowe's family slept with firearms, ready to defend their 
lives. Finally the trustees of the college forbade all slav¬ 
ery discussion by the students, and as a result, nearly the 
whole body left the institution. 

Dr. Beecher, meantime, was absent at the East, having 
raised a large sum of money for the seminary, and came 
back only to find his labor almost hopeless. For several 
years, however, he and his children stayed and worked 
on. Mrs. Stowe opened her house to colored children, 
whom she taught with her own. One bright boy in her 
school was claimed by an estate in Kentucky, arrested, 
and was to be sold at auction. The half-crazed mother 
appealed to Mrs. Stowe, who raised the needed money 
among her friends, and thus saved the lad. 

Finally, worn out with the “irrepressible conflict/’ the 
Beecher family, with the Stowes, came North in 1850, 
Mr. Stowe accepted a professorship at Bowdoin College, 
Brunswick, Maine. A few boarders were taken into the 
family to eke out the limited salary, and Mrs. Stowe 
earned a little from a sketch written now and then for the 
newspapers. She had even obtained a prize of fifty dol¬ 
lars for a New England story. Her six brothers had 
fulfilled their mother's dying wish, and were all in the 
ministry. She was now forty years old, a devoted 
mother, with an infant; a hard-working teacher, with her 
hands full to overflowing. It seemed improbable that 
she would ever do other than this quiet, unceasing labor. 
Most women would have said, “I can do no more than I 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


109 


am doing. My way is hedged up to any outside work.” 

But Mrs. Stowe’s heart burned for those in bondage. 
The Fugitive Slave Law was hunting colored people and 
sending them back into servitude and death. The peo¬ 
ple of the North seemed indifferent. Could she not 
arouse them by something she could write? 

One Sunday, as she sat at the communion table in the 
little Brunswick church, the pattern of Uncle Tom formed 
itself in her mind, and, almost overcome by her feelings, 
she hastened home and wrote out the chapter on his death. 
When she had finished, she read it to her two sons, ten 
and twelve, who burst out sobbing, “Oh! mamma, slavery 
is the most cursed thing in the world.” 

After two or three more chapters were ready, she wrote 
to Dr. Bailey, who had moved his paper from Cincinnati 
to Washington, offering the manuscript for the columns 
of the National Era, and it was accepted. Now the mat¬ 
ter must be prepared each week. She visited Boston, 
and at the Anti-Slavery rooms borrowed several books 
to aid in furnishing facts. And then the story wrote it¬ 
self out of her full heart and brain. When it neared 
completion, Mr. Jewett of Boston, through the influence 
of his wife, offered to become the publisher, but feared 
if the serial were much longer, it would be a failure. 
She wrote him that she could not stop till it was done. 

Uncle Toni's Cabin was published March 20, 1852. 
Then came the reaction in her own mind. Would any¬ 
body read this book? The subject was unpopular. It 
would indeed be a failure, she feared, but she would help 
the story make its way if possible. She sent a copy of 
the book to Prince Albert, knowing that both he and 
Queen Victoria were deeply interested in the subject; an¬ 
other copy to Macaulay, whose father was a friend of 
Wilberforce; one to Charles Dickens; and another to 


IIO 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


Charles Kingsley. And then the busy mother, wife, 
teacher, housekeeper, and author waited in her quiet Maine 
home to see what the busy world would say. 

In ten days, ten thousand copies had been sold. Eight 
presses were run day and night to supply the demand. 
Thirty different editions appeared in London in six 
months. Six theatres in that great city were playing it at 
one time. Over three hundred thousand copies were sold 
in less than a year. 

Letters poured in upon Mrs. Stowe from all parts of 
the world. Prince Albert sent his hearty thanks. Dickens 
said, “Your book is worthy of any head and any heart 
that ever inspired a book.” Kingsley wrote, “It is per¬ 
fect.” The noble Earl of Shaftesbury wrote, “None 
but a Christian believer could have produced such a book 
as yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world. 
... I live in hope—God grant it may rise to faith!— 
that this system is drawing to a close. It seems as though 
our Lord had sent out this book as the messenger before 
Llis face to prepare His way before Him.” He wrote 
out an address of sympathy “From the women of Eng¬ 
land to the women of America,” to which were appended 
the signatures of 562,448 women. These were in twenty- 
six folio volumes, bound in morocco, with the American 
eagle on the back of each, the whole in a solid oak case, 
sent to the care of Mrs. Stowe. 

The learned reviews gave long notices of Uncle Toni's 
Cabin. Blackwood's said, “There are scenes and touches 
in this book which no living writer that we know can sur¬ 
pass, and perhaps none can equal.” George Eliot wrote 
her beautiful letters. 

How the heart of Lyman Beecher must have been glad¬ 
dened by this wonderful success of his daughter! How 
Roxana Beecher must have looked down from heaven, 
and smiled that never-to-be-forgotten smile! How Har- 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


hi 


riet Beecher Stowe herself must have thanked God for this 
unexpected fulness of blessing! Thousands of dollars 
were soon paid to her as her share of the profits from 
the sale of the book. How restful it must have seemed 
to the tired, overworked woman, to have more than 
enough for daily needs! 

The following year, 1853, Professor Stowe and his 
now famous wife decided to cross the ocean for needed 
rest. What was their astonishment, to be welcomed by 
immense public meetings in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edin¬ 
burgh, Aberdeen, Dundee; indeed, in every city which they 
visited. People in the towns stopped her carriage, to fill 
it with flowers. Boys ran along the streets, shouting, 
“That’s her—see the courts!” A penny offering was 
made her, given by people of all ranks, consisting of one 
thousand golden sovereigns on a beautiful silver salver. 
When the committee having the matter in charge visited 
one little cottage, they found only a blind woman, and 
said, “She will feel no interest, as she cannot read the 
book.” 

“Indeed,” said the old lady, “if I cannot read, my son 
has read it to me, and I’ve got my penny saved to give.” 

The beautiful Duchess of Sutherland entertained Mrs. 
Stowe at her house, where she met Lord Palmerston, the 
Duke of Argyle, Macaulay, Gladstone, and others. The 
duchess gave her a solid gold bracelet in the form of a 
slave’s shackle, with the words, “We trust it is a memorial 
of a chain that is soon to be broken.” On one link was 
the date of the abolition of the slave trade, March 25, 
1807, and of slavery in the English territories, August 1, 
1834. On the other links are now engraved the dates of 
Emancipation in the District of Columbia; President Lin¬ 
coln’s proclamation abolishing slavery in the States in re¬ 
bellion, January 1, 1863; and finally, on the clasp, the date 
of the Constitutional amendment, abolishing slavery for- 


112 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


ever in the United States. Only a decade after Uncle 
Tom’s Cabin was written, and nearly all this accom¬ 
plished! Who could have believed it possible? 

On Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe, she wrote Sunny 
Memories of Foreign Lands, which had a large sale. 
Her husband was now appointed to the professorship of 
sacred literature in the Theological Seminary at And¬ 
over, Mass., and here they made their home. The stu¬ 
dents found in her a warm-hearted friend, and an inspira¬ 
tion to intellectual work. Other books followed from her 
pen: Dred, a powerful anti-slavery story; The Minister’s 
Wooing, with lovely Mary Scudder as its heroine; Agnes 
of Sorrento, an Italian story; the Pearl of Orr’s Island, 
a tale of the New England coast; Old Town Folks; House 
and Home Papers; My Wife and I; Pink and White 
Tyranny; and some others, all of which have been widely 
read. 

The sale of Uncle Tom’s Cabin has not ceased. It is 
estimated that over one and a half million copies have been 
sold in Great Britain and her colonies, and probably an 
equal or greater number in this country. There have been 
twelve French editions, eleven German, and six Spanish. 
It has been published in nineteen different languages,—• 
Russian, Hungarian, Armenian, Modern Greek, Finnish, 
Welsh, Polish, and others. In Bengal the book is very 
popular. A lady of high rank in the court of Siam, lib¬ 
erated her slaves, one hundred and thirty in number, after 
reading this book, and said, “I am wishful to be good 
like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and never again to buy hu¬ 
man bodies, but only to let them go free once more.” In 
France the sale of the Bible was increased because the 
people wished to read the book Uncle Tom loved so much. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, like Les Miserables, and a few 
other novels, will live, because written with a purpose. 


HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 


Ir 3 

No work of fiction is permanent without some great un¬ 
derlying principle or object. 

Soon after the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe bought a home 
among the orange groves of Florida. With the proceeds 
of public readings she built a church, in which her hus¬ 
band preached as long as his health permitted. 

On Mrs. Stowe’s seventy-first birthday, her publishers, 
gave a garden party in her honor, at the hospitable home 
of Governor Claflin and his wife, at Newton, Mass. 
Poets and artists, statesmen and reformers, were invited 
to meet the famous author. On a stage, under a great 
tent, she sat, while poems were read and speeches made. 
The brown curls had become snowy white, and the bright 
eyes of girlhood had grown deeper and more earnest. The 
manner was the same as ever, unostentatious, courteous, 
kindly. 

Mrs. Stowe died July I., 1896 of paralysis in her home 
at Hartford, Conn., at the age of eighty-five. She passed 
away as if to sleep, her son, the Rev. Charles Edward 
Stowe, and her daughters, Eliza and Harriet, standing 
by her bedside. After the death of her husband, in 
1886, Mrs. Stowe had gradually failed physically and men¬ 
tally. She was buried July 3 in the cemetery connected 
with the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass., between 
the graves of her husband and her son, Henry. 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

Thousands were saddened when, August 12, 1885, it 
was flashed across the wires that Helen Hunt Jackson was 
dead. The Nation said, “The news will probably carry 
a pang of regret into more American homes than similar 
intelligence in regard to any other woman, with the possi¬ 
ble exception of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.” 

How, with the simple initials, “H. H.,” had she won 
this place in the hearts of the people? Was it because 
she was a poet? Oh no! many persons of genius have 
few friends. It was because an earnest life was back of 
her gifted writings. A great book needs a great man or 
woman behind it to make it a perfect work. Mrs. Jack¬ 
son’s literary work will be abiding, but her life, with its 
dark shadows and bright sunlight, its deep affections and 
sympathy with the oppressed, will furnish a rich setting 
for the gems of thought which she gave to the world. 

Born in the cultured town of Amherst, Mass., October 
18, 1831, she inherited from her mother a sunny, buoyant 
nature, and from her father, Nathan W. Fiske, profes¬ 
sor of languages and philosophy in the college, a strong 
and vigorous mind. Her own vivid description of the 
“naughtiest day of my life,” in St. Nicholas, September 
and October, 1880, shows the ardent, wilful child who 
was one day to stand out fearlessly before the nation and 
tell its statesmen the wrong they had done to “her In¬ 
dians.” 

She and her younger sister Annie were allowed, by 
their mother, one April day, to go into the woods just 
before school hours, to gather checkerberries. Helen, 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 115 

finding the woods very pleasant, determined to spend the 
day in them, even though sure she would receive a whip¬ 
ping on her return home. The sister could not be coaxed 
to do wrong, but a neighbor’s child, with the promise of 
seeing live snails with horns, was induced to accompany 
the truant. They wandered from one forest to another, 
till hunger compelled them to seek food at a stranger’s 
home. The kind farmer and his wife were going to a 
funeral, and wished to lock their house; but they took pity 
on the little ones, and gave them some bread and milk. 

“There,” said the woman, “now, you just make your¬ 
selves comfortable, and eat all you can; and when you’re 
done, you push the bowls in among them lilac-bushes, and 
nobody’ll get ’em.” 

Urged on by Helen, she and her companion wandered 
into the village, to ascertain where the funeral was to 
be held. It was in the meeting-house, and thither they 
went, and seated themselves on the bier outside the door. 
Becoming tired of this, they trudged on. One of them 
lost her shoe in the mud, and stopping at a house to 
dry their stockings, they were captured by two Amherst 
professors, who had come over to Hadley to attend the 
funeral. The children had walked four miles, and nearly 
the whole town, with the frightened mother, were in 
search of the runaways. Helen, greatly displeased at 
being caught, jumped out of the carriage, but was soon 
retaken. At ten o’clock at night they reached home, and 
the child walked in as rosy and smiling as possible, say¬ 
ing, “Oh, mother! I’ve had a perfectly splendid time!” 

A few days passed, and then her father sent for her to 
come into his study, and told her because she had not said 
she was sorry for running away, she must go into the 
garret, and wait till he came to see her. Sullen at this 
punishment, she took a nail and began to bore holes in 
the plastering. This so angered the professor, that he 


116 HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

gave her a severe whipping, and kept her in the garret 
for a week. It is questionable whether she was more 
penitent at the end of the week than she was at the 
beginning. 

When Helen was twelve, both father and mother died, 
leaving her to the care of a grandfather. She was soon 
placed in the school of the author, Rev. J. S. C. Abbott, of 
New York, and here some of her happiest days were 
passed. She grew to womanhood, frank, merry, impul¬ 
sive, brilliant in conversation, and fond of society. 

At twenty-one she was married to a young army officer, 
Captain, afterward Major, Edward B. Hunt, whom his 
friends called “Cupid” Hunt from his beauty and his 
curling hair. He was a brother of Governor Hunt of 
New York, an engineer of high rank, and a man of fine 
scientific attainments. They lived much of their time at 
West Point and Newport, and the young wife moved in 
a fashionable social circle, and won hosts of admiring 
friends. Now and then, when he read a paper before 
some learned society, he was proud to take his vivacious 
and attractive wife with him. 

Their first baby died when he was eleven months old, 
but another beautiful boy came to take his place, named 
after two friends, Warren Horsford, but familiarly called 
“Rennie.” He was an uncommonly bright child, and 
Mrs. Hunt was passionately fond and proud of him. 
Life seemed full of pleasures. She dressed handsomely, 
and no wish of her heart seemed ungratified. 

Suddenly, like a thunder-bolt from a clear sky, the 
happy life was shattered. Major Hunt was killed, Octo¬ 
ber 2, 1863, while experimenting in Brooklyn, with a sub¬ 
marine gun of his own invention. The young widow 
still had her eight-year-old boy, and to him she clung 
more tenderly than ever, but in less than two years she 
stood by his dying bed. Seeing the agony of his mother, 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 


ii 7 

and forgetting his own fight with that dread destroyer, 
diphtheria, he said, almost at the last moment, “Promise 
me, mamma, that you will not kill yourself.” 

She promised, and exacted from him also a pledge that 
if it were possible, he would come back from the other 
world to talk with his mother. He never came, and Mrs. 
Hunt could have no faith in spiritualism, because what 
Rennie could not do, she believed to be impossible. 

For months she shut herself into her own room, refus¬ 
ing to see her nearest friends. “Any one who really 
loves me ought to pray that I may die, too, like Ren¬ 
nie,” she said. Her physician thought she would die of 
grief; but when her strong, earnest nature had wrestled 
with itself and come off conqueror, she came out of her 
seclusion, cheerful as of old. The pictures of her hus¬ 
band and boy were ever beside her, and these doubtless 
spurred her on to the work she was to accomplish. 

Three months after Rennie’s death, her first poem, 
Lifted Over, appeared in the Nation :— 

“As tender mothers, guiding baby steps, 

When places come at which the tiny feet 
Would trip, lift up the little ones in arms 
Of love, and set them down beyond the harm. 

So did our Father watch the precious boy, 

Led o’er the stones by me, who stumbled oft 
Myself, but strove to help my darling on: 

He saw the sweet limbs faltering, and saw 
Rough ways before us, where my arms would fail; 

So reached from heaven, and lifting the dear child, 
Who smiled in leaving me, He put him down 
Beyond all hurt, beyond my sight, and bade 
Him wait for me! Shall I not then be glad, 

And, thanking God, press on to overtake?” 

The poem was widely copied, and many mothers were 
comforted by it. The kind letters she received in conse- 


118 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 


quence were the first gleam of sunshine in the darkened 
life. If she were doing even a little good, she could live 
and be strong. 

And then began, at thirty-four, absorbing, painstaking 
literary work. She studied the best models of composi¬ 
tion. She said to a friend, years after, “Have you ever 
tested the advantages of an analytical reading of some 
writer of finished style? There is a little book called 
Out-Door Papers, by Wentworth Higginson, that is one 
of the most perfect specimens of literary composition in 
the English language. It has been my model for years. 
I go to it as a text-book, and have actually spent hours at 
a time, taking one sentence after another, and experiment¬ 
ing upon them, trying to see if I could take out a word 
or transpose a clause, and not destroy their perfection.” 
And again, “I shall never write a sentence, so long as 
I live, without studying it over from the standpoint of 
whether you would think it could be bettered.” 

Her first prose sketch, on a walk up Mt. Washington 
from the Glen House, appeared in the Independent, Sep¬ 
tember 13, 1866; and from this time she wrote for that 
able journal three hundred and seventy-one articles. She 
worked rapidly, writing usually with a lead-pencil, on 
large sheets of yellow paper, but she pruned carefully. 
Her first poem in the Atlantic Monthly, entitled Corona¬ 
tion, delicate and full of meaning, appeared in 1869, being 
taken to Mr. Fields, the editor, by a friend. 

At this time she spent a year abroad, principally in 
Germany and Italy, writing home several sketches. In 
Rome she became so ill that her life was despaired of. 
When she was partially recovered, and went away to re¬ 
gain her strength, her friends insisted that a professional 
nurse should go with her; but she took a hard-working 
young Italian girl of sixteen, to whom this vacation would 
be a blessing. 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 119 

On her return, in 1870, a little book of Verses was pub¬ 
lished. Like most beginners, she was obliged to pay for 
the stereotyped plates. The book was well received. Em¬ 
erson liked especially her sonnet, Thought. He ranked 
her poetry above that of all American women, and most 
American men. Some persons praised the “exquisite mus¬ 
ical structure” of the Gondoliers, and others read and re¬ 
read her beautiful Down to Sleep. But the world’s fav¬ 
orite was Spinning :— 

“Like a blind spinner in the sun, 

I tread my days; 

I know that all the threads will run 
Appointed ways; 

I know each day will bring its task, 

And, being blind, no more I ask. 

• • • • • • 

“But listen, listen, day by day, 

To hear their tread 
Who bear the finished web away, 

And cut the thread, 

And bring God’s message in the sun, 

‘Thou poor blind spinner, work is done/ ” 

After this came two other small books, Bits of Travel 
and Bits of Talk about Home Matters. She paid for the 
plates of the former. Fame did not burst upon Helen 
Hunt; it came after years of work, after it had been fully 
earned. The road to authorship is a hard one, and only 
those should attempt it who have courage and persever¬ 
ance. 

Again her health failed, but not her cheerful spirits. 
She travelled to Colorado, and wrote a book: in praise of 
it. Everywhere she made lasting friends. Her German 
landlady in Munich thought her the kindest person in the 
world. The newsboy, the little urchin on the street with 


120 HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

a basketful of wares, the guides over the mountain passes, 
all remembered her cheery voice and helpful words. She 
used to say, “She is only half mother who does not see 
her own child in every child. Oh, if the world could only 
stop long enough for one generation of mothers to be 
made all right, what a Millennium could be begun in thirty 
years!” Some one, in her childhood, called her a “stupid 
child” before strangers, and she never forgot the sting 
of it. 

In Colorado, in 1876, eleven years after the death of 
Major Hunt, she married Mr. William Sharpless Jack- 
son, a Quaker and a cultured banker. Her home, at Col¬ 
orado Springs, became an ideal one, sheltered under the 
great Manitou, and looking toward the Garden of the 
Gods, full of books and magazines, of dainty rugs and 
dainty china gathered from many countries, and richly 
colored Colorado flowers. Once when Eastern guests 
were invited to luncheon, twenty-three varieties of wild- 
flowers, each massed in its own color, adorned the home. 
A friend of hers says: “There is not an artificial flower 
in the house, on embroidered table-cover or sofa cushion 
or tidy; indeed, Mrs. Jackson holds that the manufacture 
of silken poppies and crewel sun-flowers is a ‘respectable 
industry,’ intended only to keep idle hands out of mis¬ 
chief.” 

Mrs. Jackson loved flowers almost as though they were 
children. She writes. “I bore on this June day a sheaf of 
the white columbine,—one single sheaf, one single root; 
but it was almost more than I could carry. In the open 
spaces, I carried it on my shoulder; in the thickets, I bore 
it carefully in my arms, like a baby. . . . There is a part 
of Cheyenne Mountain which I and one other have come 
to call ‘our garden.’ When we drive down from ‘our 
garden,’ there is seldom room for another flower in our 
carriage. The top thrown back is filled, the space in front 



HELEN HUNT JACKSON 







121 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

of the driver is filled, and our laps and baskets are filled 
with the more delicate blossoms. We look as if we were 
on our way to the ceremonies of Decoration Day. So we 
are. All June days are decoration days in Colorado 
Springs, but it is the sacred joy of life that we decorate, 
—not the sacred sadness of death.” But Mrs. Jackson, 
with her pleasant home, could not rest from her work. 
Two novels came from her pen, Mercy Philbrick's Choice 
and Hetty's Strange History. It is probable also that she 
helped to write the beautiful and tender Saxe Holm Sto¬ 
ries. It is said that Draxy Miller s Dowry and Esther 
Wynn's Love Letters were written by another, while Mrs. 
Jackson added the lovely poems; and when a request was 
made by the publishers for more stories from the 
same author, Mrs. Jackson was prevailed upon to write 
them. 

The time had now come for her to do her last and per¬ 
haps her best work. She could not write without a defi¬ 
nite purpose, and now the purpose that settled down upon 
her heart was to help the defrauded Indians. She be¬ 
lieved they needed education and Christianization rather 
than extermination. She left her home and spent three 
months in the Astor Library of New York, writing her 
Century of Dishonor , showing how we have despoiled 
the Indians and broken our treaties with them. She 
wrote to a friend, “I cannot think of anything else from 
night to morning and from morning to night.” So un¬ 
tiringly did she work that she made herself ill, and was 
obliged to go to Norway, leaving a literary ally to correct 
the proofs of her book. 

At her own expense, she sent a copy to each member of 
Congress. Its plain facts were not relished in some quar¬ 
ters, and she began to taste the cup that all reformers have 
to drink; but the brave woman never flinched in her duty. 
So much was the Government impressed by her earnest- 


122 HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

ness and good judgment, that she was appointed a Special 
Commissioner with her friend, Abbott Kinney, to exam¬ 
ine and report on the condition of the Mission Indians in 
California. 

Could an accomplished, tenderly reared woman go 
into their adobe villages and listen to their wrongs? 
What would the world say of its poet? Mrs. Jackson 
did not ask; she had a mission to perform, and the more 
culture, the more responsibility. She brought cheer and 
hope to the red men and their wives, and they called her 
“the Queen.” She wrote able articles about them in the 
Century. 

The report made by Mr. Kinney and herself, which she 
prepared largely, was clear and convincing. How dif¬ 
ferent all this from her early life! Mrs. Jackson had be¬ 
come more than poet and novelist; even the leader of an 
oppressed people. At once, in the winter of 1883, she be¬ 
gan to write her wonderfully graphic and tender Ramona, 
and into this, she said, “I put my heart and soul.” The 
book was immediately reprinted in England, and has had 
great popularity. She meant to do for the Indian what 
Mrs. Stowe did for the slave, and she lived long enough 
to see the great work well in progress. 

This true missionary work had greatly deepened the 
earnestness of the brilliant woman. Not always tender to 
other people's “hobbies,” as she said, she now had one 
of her own, into which she was putting her life. Her 
horizon, with her great intellectual gifts, had now become 
as wide as the universe. Had she lived, how many more 
great questions she would have touched. 

In June, 1884, falling on the staircase of her Colorado 
home, she severely fractured her leg, and was confined to 
the house for several months. Then she was taken to 
Los Angeles, for the winter months. The broken limb 


HELEN HUNT JACKSON 


123 


mended rapidly, but malarial fever set in, and she was 
carried to San Francisco. Tier first remark was, as she 
entered the house looking out upon the broad and lovely 
bay, “I did not imagine it was so pleasant! What a beau¬ 
tiful place to die in!” 

To the last her letters to her friends were full of cheer. 
“You must not think because I speak of not getting well 
that I am sad over it,” she wrote. “On the contrary, I 
am more and more relieved in mind, as it seems to grow 
more and more sure that I shall die. You see that I am 
growing old” (she was but fifty-four), “and I do believe 
that my work is done. You have never realized how, for 
the past five years, my whole soul has been centered on the 
Indian question. Ramona was the outcome of those five 
years. The Indian cause is on its feet now; powerful 
friends are at work.” 

To another she wrote. “I am heartily, honestly, and 
cheerfully ready to go. In fact, I am glad to go. My 
Century of Dishonor and Ramona are the only things I 
have done of which I am glad now. The rest is of no 
moment. They will live, and they will bear fruit. They 
already have. The change in public feeling on the In¬ 
dian question in the last three years is marvellous; an 
Indian Rights Association in every large city in the 
land.” 

She had no fear of death. She said, “It is only just 
passing from one country to another. . . . My only re¬ 
gret is that I have not accomplished more work; espe¬ 
cially that it was so late in the day when I began to work in 
real earnest. But I do not doubt we shall keep on work¬ 
ing. . . . There isn’t so much difference, I fancy, be¬ 
tween this life and the next as we think, nor so much bar¬ 
rier. ... I shall look in upon you in the new rooms 
some day; but you will not see me. Good-bye.” 


124 HELEN HUNT JACKSON 

Four clays before her death she wrote to President 
Cleveland:— 

“From my death-bed I send you a message of heart-felt 
thanks for what you have already done for the Indians. I 
ask you to read my Century of Dishonor. I am dying hap¬ 
pier for the belief I have that it is your hand that is destined 
to strike the first steady blow toward lifting this burden of 
infamy from our country, and righting the wrongs of the 
Indian race.” 

Thus to the last she forgot self and devoted her 
strength to the cause of others. That is why the name 
of Helen Hunt Jackson will live. 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


Years ago I attended, at some inconvenience, a large 
public meeting, because I heard that Lucretia Mott was 
to speak. After several addresses, a slight lady, with 
white cap and drab Quaker dress, came forward. Though 
well in years, her eyes were bright; her smile was win¬ 
some, and I thought her face one of the loveliest I had 
ever looked upon. The voice was singularly sweet and 
clear, and the manner had such naturalness and grace as 
a queen might envy. I have forgotten the words, for¬ 
gotten even the subject, but the benign presence and gra¬ 
cious smile I shall never forget. 

Born among the quiet scenes of Nantucket, January 3, 
1793, Lucretia grew to girlhood with habits of economy, 
neatness, and helpfulness in the home. Her father, 
Thomas Coffin, was a sea-captain of staunch principle; her 
mother, a woman of great energy, wit, and good sense. 
The children’s pleasures were such as a plain country 
home afforded. When Mrs. Coffin went to visit her 
neighbors, she would say to her daughters, “Now after 
you have finished knitting twenty bouts, you may go 
down cellar and pick out as many as you want of the 
smallest potatoes,—the very smallest,—and roast them in 
the ashes.” Then the six little folks gathered about the 
big fireplace and enjoyed a frolic. 

When Lucretia was twelve years old, the family moved 
to Boston. At first all the children attended a private 
school; but Captain Coffin, fearing this would make them 
proud, removed them to a public school, where they could 
“mingle with all classes without distinction.” Years 

125 


126 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


after Lucretia said, “I am glad, because it gave me a feel¬ 
ing of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor, 
which, but for this experience, I might never have known/’ 

A year later, she was sent to a Friends’ boarding- 
school at Nine Partners, N. Y. Both boys and girls at¬ 
tended this school, but were not permitted to speak to 
each other unless they were near relatives; if so, they 
could talk a little on certain days over a certain corner 
of the fence, between the playgrounds! Such grave pre¬ 
cautions did not entirely prevent the acquaintance of the 
young people; for when a lad was shut up in a closet, 
on bread and water, Lucretia and her sister supplied him 
with bread and butter under the door. This boy was a 
cousin of the teacher, James Mott, who was fond of the 
quick-witted school-girl, so that it is probable that no 
harm came to her from breaking the rules. 

At fifteen, Lucretia was appointed an assistant teacher, 
and she and Mr. Mott, with a desire to know more of 
literature, and quite possibly more of each other, began 
to study French together. He was tall, with light hair 
and blue eyes, and shy in manner; she, petite, with dark 
hair and eyes, quick in thought and action, and fond of 
mirth. When she was eighteen and James twenty-one, 
the young teachers were married, and both went to her 
father’s home in Philadelphia to reside, he assisting in 
Mr. Coffin’s business. 

The war of 1812 brought financial failure to many, and 
young Mott soon found himself with a wife and infant 
daughter to support, and no work. Hoping that he could 
obtain a situation with an uncle in New York State, he 
took his family thither, but came back disappointed. Fi¬ 
nally he found work in a plow store at a salary of six hun¬ 
dred dollars a year. 

Captain Coffin meantime had died, leaving his family 
poor. James could do so little for them all with his 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


127 


limited salary, that he determined to open a small store; 
but the experiment proved a failure. His health began 
to be affected by this ill success, when Lucretia, with her 
brave heart, said, “My cousin and I will open a school; 
thee must not get discouraged, James.” 

The school was opened with four pupils, each paying 
seven dollars a quarter. The young wife put so much 
good cheer and earnestness into her work, that soon there 
were forty pupils in the school. Mr. Mott’s prospects 
now brightened, for he was earning one thousand dollars 
a year. The young couple were happy in their hard 
work, for they loved each other, and love lightens all care 
and labor. 

But soon a sorrow worse than poverty came. Their 
only son, Thomas, a most affectionate child, died, saying 
with his last breath, “I love thee, mother.” It was a 
crushing blow; but it proved a blessing in the end, lead¬ 
ing her thoughts heavenward. 

A few months afterwards her voice was heard for the 
first time in public, in prayer, in one of the Friends’ meet¬ 
ings. The words were simple, earnest, eloquent. The 
good Quakers marvelled, and encouraged the “gift.” 
They did not ask whether man or woman brought the 
message, so it came from heaven. 

And now, at twenty-five, having resigned her position 
as teacher, she began close study of the Bible and the¬ 
ological books. She had four children to care for, did 
all her sewing, even cutting and making her own dresses; 
but she learned what every one can learn,—to economize 
time. Her house was kept scrupulously clean. She 
says: “I omitted much unnecessary stitching and orna¬ 
mental work in the sewing for my family, so that I 
might have more time for the improvement of my mind. 
For novels and light reading I never had much taste; the 
ladies’ department in the periodicals of the day had no 


128 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


attraction for me.” She would lay a copy of William 
Penn’s ponderous volumes open at the foot of her bed, 
and drawing her chair close to it, with her baby on her 
lap, would study the book diligently. A woman of less 
energy and less will-power than young Mrs. Mott would 
have given up all hope of being a scholar. She read the 
best books in philosophy and science. John Stuart Mill 
and Dean Stanley, though widely different, were among 
her favorite authors. 

James Mott was now prospering in the cotton business, 
so that they could spare time to go in their carriage and 
speak at the Quaker meetings in the surrounding country. 
Lucretia would be so absorbed in thought as not to notice 
the beauties of the landscape, which her husband always 
greatly enjoyed. Pointing out a fine view to her, she 
replied, ‘‘Yes, it is beautiful, now that thou points it out, 
but I should not have noticed it. I have always taken 
more interest in human nature.” From a child she was 
deeply interested for the slave. She had read in her 
school-books Clarkson’s description of the slave ships, and 
these left an impression never to be effaced. When, 
December 4, 1833, a convention met in Philadelphia for 
the purpose of forming the American Anti-Slavery So¬ 
ciety, Lucretia Mott was one of the four women who 
braved the social obloquy, as friends of the despised aboli¬ 
tionists. She spoke, and was listened to with attention. 
Immediately the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society 
was formed, and Mrs. Mott became its president and its 
inspiration. So unheard-of a thing was an association of 
women, and so unaccustomed were they to the methods of 
organization, that they were obliged to call a colored man 
to the chair to assist them. 

The years of martyrdom which followed, we at this 
day can scarcely realize. Anti-slavery lecturers were 
tarred and feathered. Mobs in New York and Philadel- 












LUCRETIA MOTT 


129 


phia swarmed the streets, burning houses and breaking 
church windows. In the latter city they surrounded the 
hall of the Abolitionists, where the women were holding 
a large convention, and Mrs. Mott was addressing them. 
All day long they cursed and threw stones, and as soon as 
the women left the building, they burned it to ashes. 
Then, wrought up to fury, the mob started for the house 
of James and Lucretia Mott. Knowing that they were 
coming, the calm woman sent her little children away, 
and then in the parlor, with a few friends, peacefully 
awaited a probable death. 

In the turbulent throng was a young man who, while 
he was no friend of the colored man, could not see Lu¬ 
cretia Mott harmed. With skilful ruse, as they neared 
the house, he rushed up another street, shouting at the 
top of his voice, “On to Motts!” and the wild crowd 
blindly followed, wreaking their vengeance in another 
quarter. 

A year later, in Delaware, where Mrs. Mott, was speak¬ 
ing, one of her party, a defenceless old man, was dragged 
from the house, and tarred and feathered. She followed, 
begging the men to desist, and saying that she was the 
real offender, but no violent hands were laid upon her. 

At another time, when the annual meeting of the Anti- 
Slavery Society in New York was broken up by the mob, 
some of the speakers were roughly handled. Perceiv¬ 
ing that several ladies were timid, Mrs. Mott, said to 
the gentleman who was accompanying her, “Won’t thee 
look after some of the others?” 

“But who will take care of you?” he said. 

With great tact and a sweet smile, she answered, “This 
man,” laying her hand on the arm of one of the roughest 
of the mob; “he will see me safe through.” 

The astonished man had, like others, a tender heart 
beneath the roughness, and with respectful manner took 


130 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


her to a place of safety. The next day, going into a res¬ 
taurant, she saw the leader of the mob, and immediately 
sat down by him, and began to converse. Her kindness 
and her sweet voice left a deep impression. As he went 
out of the room, he asked at the door, “Who is that 
lady?” 

“Why, that is Lucretia Mott!” 

For a second he was dumbfounded; but he added, 
“Well, she’s a good, sensible woman.” 

In 1839 a World’s Convention was called at London 
to debate the slavery question. Among the delegates 
chosen were James and Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phil¬ 
lips and his wife, and others. Mrs. Mott was jubilant 
at the thought of the world's interest in this great ques¬ 
tion, and glad for an opportunity to cross the ocean and 
enjoy a little rest, and the pleasure of meeting friends 
who had worked in the same cause. 

When the party arrived, they were told, to their as¬ 
tonishment, that no women were to be admitted to the 
Convention as delegates. They had faced mobs and os¬ 
tracism ; they had given money and earnest labor, but they 
were to be ignored. William Lloyd Garrison, hurt at 
such injustice, refused to take part in the Convention, 
and sat in the gallery with the women. Although Mrs. 
Mott did not speak in the assembly, the Dublin Herald 
said, “Nobody doubts that she was the lioness of the Con¬ 
vention.” She was entertained at public breakfasts, and 
at these spoke with the greatest acceptance to both men 
and women. The Duchess of Sutherland and Lady By¬ 
ron showed her great attention. Carlyle was “much 
pleased with the Quaker lady, whose quiet manner had 
a soothing effect on him,” wrote Mrs. Carlyle to a friend. 
At Glasgow “she held a delighted audience for nearly 
two hours in breathless attention,” said the press. 

After some months of devoted Christian work, along 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


131 

with sight-seeing, Mr. and Mrs. Mott started homeward. 
He had spoken less frequently than his wife, but always 
had been listened to with deep interest. Her heart was 
moved toward a large number of Irish emigrants in the 
steerage, and she desired to hold a religious meeting 
among them. When asked about it, they said they would 
not hear a woman preacher, for women priests were not 
allowed in their church. Then she asked that they would 
come together and consider whether they would have 
a meeting. This seemed fair, and they came. She ex¬ 
plained to them that she did not intend to hold a church 
service; that, as they were leaving their old homes and 
seeking new ones in her country, she wanted to talk with 
them in such a way as would help them in the land of 
strangers. And then, if they would listen,—they were 
all at the time listening very eagerly,—she would give an 
outline of what she had intended to say, if the meeting 
had been held. At the close, when all had departed, it 
dawned upon some of the quicker-witted ones that thev 
“had got the preachment from the woman preacher, after 
all. ,? 

The steamer arrived at the close of a twenty-nine days’ 
voyage, and, after a brief rest, Mrs. Mott began again her 
public work. She spoke before the legislatures of New 
Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. She called on Pres¬ 
ident Tyler, and he talked with her cordially and freely 
about the slave. In Kentucky, says one of the leading 
papers, “For an hour and a half she enchained an or¬ 
dinarily restless audience—many were standing—to a de¬ 
gree never surpassed here by the most popular orators. 
She said some things that were far from palatable, but 
said them with an air of sincerity that commanded respect 
and attention.” 

Mrs. Mott was deeply interested in other questions 
besides slavery,—suffrage for women, total abstinence, 



132 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


and national differences settled by arbitration instead of 
war. Years before, when she began to teach school, and 
found that while girls paid the same tuition as the boys, 
“when they became teachers, women received only half 
as much as men for their services,” she says: “The 
injustice of this distinction was so apparent, that I early 
resolved to claim for myself all that an impartial Creator 
had bestowed.” 

In 1848, Mrs. Mott, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and 
some others, called the first Woman’s Suffrage Conven¬ 
tion in this country, at Seneca Falls, N. Y. There was 
much ridicule,—we had not learned, forty-years ago, 
to treat with courtesy those whose opinions are different 
from our own,—but the sweet Quaker preacher went 
serenely forward, as though all the world were on her 
side. When she conversed with those who differed, she 
listened so courteously to objections, and stated her own 
views so delicately and kindly, and often so wittily, that 
none could help liking her, even though they did not 
agree with her. She realized that few can be driven, 
while many can be won with gentleness and tact. 

In all these years of public speaking, her home was not 
only a refuge for the oppressed, but a delightful social 
center, where prominent people gathered from both Eu¬ 
rope and America. At the table black and white were 
treated with equal courtesy. One young man, a frequent 
visitor, finding himself seated at dinner next a colored 
man, resolved to keep away from the house in future; but 
as he was in love with one of Mrs. Mott’s pretty daugh¬ 
ters, he found that his “principles” gave way to his affec¬ 
tions. He renewed his visits, became a son-in-law, and, 
later, was himself an ardent advocate of equality for the 
colored people. 

Now the guests at the hospitable home were a mother 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


133 


and seven children, from England, who, meeting with 
disappointments, had become reduced to poverty. Now 
it was an escaped slave, who had come from Richmond, 
Virginia, in a dry-goods box, by express. This poor 
man, whose wife and three children had been sold from 
him, determined to seek his freedom, even if he died 
in the effort. Weighing nearly two hundred pounds, he 
was encased in a box two feet long, twenty-three inches 
wide, and three feet high, in a sitting posture. He was 
provided with a few crackers, and a bladder filled with 
water. With a small gimlet he bored holes in the box 
to let in fresh air, and fanned himself with his hat, to 
keep the air in motion. The box was covered with can¬ 
vas, that no one might suspect its contents. His suffer¬ 
ings were almost unbearable. As the box was tossed 
from one place to another, he was badly bruised, and 
sometimes he rested for miles on his head and shoulders, 
when it seemed as though his veins would burst. Fi¬ 
nally he reached the Mott home, and found shelter and 
comfort. 

Their large house was always full. Mr. Mott had 
given up a prosperous cotton business, because the cotton 
was the product of slave labor; but he had been equally 
successful in the wool trade, so that the days of priva¬ 
tion had passed by long ago. Two of their six children, 
with their families, lived at home, and the harmony was 
remarked by everybody. Mrs. Mott rose early, and did 
much housework herself. She wrote to a friend: “l 
prepared mince for forty pies, doing every part myself, 
even to meat-chopping; picked over lots of apples, stewed 
a quantity, chopped some more, and made apple pudding; 
all of which kept me on my feet till almost two o’clock, 
having to come into the parlor every now and then to re¬ 
ceive guests.” As a rule, those women are the best 


T 34 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


house-keepers whose lives are varied by some outside in¬ 
terests. 

In the broad hall of the house stood two armchairs, 
which the children called “beggars’ chairs,” because they 
were in constant use for all sorts of people, “waiting to 
see the missus.” She never refused to see anybody. 

When letters came from all over the country, asking 
for all sorts of favors, bedding, silver spoons, a silk um¬ 
brella, or begging her to invest some money in the manu¬ 
facture of an article, warranted “to take the kink out of 
the hair of the negro,” she would always check the merri¬ 
ment of her family by saying, “Don’t laugh too much; the 
poor souls meant well.” 

Mrs. Mott was now sixty-three years of age. For forty 
years she had been seen and loved by thousands. Strang¬ 
ers would stop her on the street and say, “God bless you, 
Lucretia Mott!” Once, when a slave was being tried for 
running away, Mrs. Mott sat near him in the court, her 
son-in-law, Mr. Edward Hopper, defending his case. 
The opposing counsel asked that her chair might be 
moved, as her face would influence the jury against him! 
Benjamin H. Brewster, afterwards United States Attor¬ 
ney-General, also counsel for the Southern master, said: 
“I have heard a great deal of your mother-in-law, Hop¬ 
per; but I never saw her before to-day. She is an angel.” 
Years after, when Mr. Brewster was asked how he dared 
to change his political opinions, he replied, “Do you think 
there is anything I dare not do, after facing Lucretia 
Mott in that court-room?” 

It seemed best at this time, in 1856, as Mrs. Mott was 
much worn with care, to sell the large house in town and 
move eight miles into the country, to a quaint, roomy 
house which they called Roadside. Before they went, 
however, at the last family gathering a long poem was 
read, ending with:— 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


135 


“Who constantly will ring the bell, 

And ask if they will please to tell 
Where Mrs. Mott has gone to dwell? 

The beggars. 

“And who persistently will say, 

‘We cannot, cannot go away; 

Here in the entry let us stay?’ 

Colored beggars. 

“Who never, never, nevermore 
Will see the ‘lions’ at the door 
That they’ve so often seen before? 

The neighbors. 

“And who will miss, for months at least, 

That place of rest for man and beast, 

From North, and South, and West, and East? 

Everybody.” 

Much of the shrubbery was cut down at Roadside, that 
Mrs. Mott might have the full sunlight. So cheery a 
nature must have sunshine. Here life went on quietly 
and happily. Many papers and books were on her table, 
and she read carefully and widely. She loved especially 
Milton and Cowper. Arnold’s Light of Asia was a great 
favorite in her later years. The papers were sent to hos¬ 
pitals and infirmaries, that no good reading might be 
lost. She liked to read aloud; and if others were busy, 
she would copy extracts to read them when they were at 
leisure. Who can measure the power of an educated, in¬ 
tellectual mother in a home? 

The golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Mott was cele¬ 
brated in 1861, and a joyous season it was. James, the 
prosperous merchant, was proud of his gifted wife, and 
aided her in every way possible; while Lucretia loved 
and honored the true-hearted husband. Though Mrs. 


136 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


Mott was now seventy, she did not cease her benevolent 
work. Her carriage was always full of fruits, vege¬ 
tables, and gifts for the poor. In buying goods she 
traded usually with the small stores, where things were 
dearer, but she knew that for many of the proprietors it 
was a struggle to make ends meet. A woman so con¬ 
siderate of others would of course be loved. 

Once when riding on the street-cars in Philadelphia, 
when no black person was allowed to ride inside, every 
fifth car being reserved for their use, she saw a frail¬ 
looking and scantily-dressed colored woman, standing on 
the platform in the rain. The day was bitter cold, and 
Mrs. Mott begged the conductor to allow her to come in¬ 
side. “The company’s orders must be obeyed,” was the 
reply. Whereupon the slight Quaker lady of seventy 
walked out and stood beside the colored woman. It 
would never do to have the famous Mrs. Mott seen in the 
rain on his car; so the conductor, in his turn, went out 
and begged her to come in. 

“I cannot go in without this woman,” said Mrs. Mott 
quietly. Nonplussed for a moment, he looked at the 
kindly face, and said, “Oh, well, bring her in then!” 
Soon the “company’s orders” were changed in the in¬ 
terests of humanity, and colored people as well as white 
enjoyed their civil rights, as becomes a great nation. 

With all this beauty of character, Lucretia Mott had 
her trials. Somewhat early in life she and her husband 
had joined the so-called Unitarian branch of Quakers, 
and for this they were persecuted. So deep was the sec¬ 
tarian feeling, that once, when suffering from acute neu¬ 
ralgia, a physician who knew her well, when called to 
attend her, said, “Lucretia, I am so deeply afflicted by thy 
rebellious spirit, that I do not feel that I can prescribe for 
thee,” and he left her to her sufferings. Such lack of 
toleration reads very strangely at this day. 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


137 


In 1868, Mr. Mott and his wife, the one eighty, and 
the other seventy-five, went to Brooklyn, N. Y., to visit 
their grandchildren. He was taken ill of pneumonia, 
and expressed a wish to go home, but added, “I suppose 
I shall die here, and then I shall be at home; it is just 
as well.” Mrs. Mott watched with him through the 
night, and at last, becoming weary, laid her head upon his 
pillow and went to sleep. In the morning, the daughter 
coming in, found the one resting from weariness, the 
other resting forever. 

At the request of several colored men, who respected 
their benefactor, Mr. Mott was borne to his grave by 
their hands. Thus ended, for this world, what one who 
knew them well called “the most perfect wedded life to 
be found on earth.” 

Mrs. Mott said, “James and I loved each other more 
than ever since we worked together for a great cause.” 
She carried out the old couplet:— 

“And be this thy pride, what but few have done, 

To hold fast the love thou hast early won.” 

After his death, she wrote to a friend, “I do not mourn, 
but rather remember my blessings, and the blessing of his 
long life with me.” 

For twelve years she lived and did her various duties. 
She had seen the slave freed, and was thankful. The 
other reforms for which she labored were progressing. 
At eighty-five she still spoke in the great meetings. Each 
Christmas she carried turkeys, pies, and a gift for each 
man and woman to the “Aged Colored Home,” in Phil¬ 
adelphia, driving twenty miles, there and back. Each 
year she sent a box of candy to each conductor and brake- 
man on the North Pennsylvania Railroad, “Because,” she 
said, “they never let me lift out my bundles, but catch 


LUCRETIA MOTT 


138 

them up so quickly, and they all seem to know me.” 

Finally the time came for her to go to meet James. 
As the end drew near, she seemed to think that she was 
conducting her own funeral, and said, as though address¬ 
ing an audience, “If you resolve to follow the Lamb wher¬ 
ever you may be led, you will find all the ways pleasant 
and the paths peace. Let me go! Do'takeme!” 

There was a large and almost silent funeral at the 
house, and at the cemetery several thousand persons were 
gathered. When friends were standing by the open 
grave, a low voice said, “Will no one say anything?” and 
another responded, “Who can speak? the preacher is 
dead!” 

Memorial services were held in various cities. For 
such a woman as Lucretia Mott, with cultured mind, 
noble heart, and holy purpose, there are no sex limitations. 
Her field is the world. 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


When a nation passes through a great struggle like 
our Civil War, great leaders are developed. Had it not 
been for this, probably Mrs. Livermore, like many other 
noble women, would have spent her years in some 
pleasant home, doing the common duties of every-day life, 
instead of becoming the famous lecturer, the gifted writer, 
the leader of the Sanitary Commission in the West; a 
brilliant illustration of the work a woman may do in the 
world, and still retain the truest womanliness. 

She was born in Boston, descended from ancestors who 
for six generations had been Welsh preachers, and reared 
by parents of the strictest Calvinistic faith. Mr. Rice, 
her father, was a man of honesty and integrity, while the 
mother was a woman of remarkable judgment and com¬ 
mon sense. 

Mary was an eager scholar, and a great favorite in 
school, because she took the part of all the poor children. 
If a little boy or girl was a cripple, or wore shabby clothes, 
or had scanty dinners, or was ridiculed, he or she found 
an earnest friend and defender in the courageous girl. 

So fond was she of the five children in the home 
younger than herself, and so much did she take upon her¬ 
self the responsibility of their conversion, that when but 
ten years old, unable to sleep, she would rise from her bed 
and waken her father and mother that they might pray 
for the sisters, “It’s no matter about me,” she would 
say; “if they are saved, I can bear anything.” 

Mature in thought and care-taking beyond her years, 
she was still fond of out-of-door sport and merry times. 

i39 


140 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


Sliding on the ice was her especial delight. One day, 
after a full hour’s fun in the bracing air, she rushed into 
the house, the blood tingling in every vein, exclaiming, 
“It’s splendid sliding!” “Yes,” replied the father, “it’s 
good fun, but wretched for shoes.” 

All at once the young girl saw how hard it was for 
her parents to buy shoes, with their limited means; and 
from that day she never again slid upon the ice. 

There were few playthings in the simple home, but 
her chief pastime was in holding meetings in her father’s 
woodshed, with the other children. Great logs were laid 
out for benches, and split sticks were set upon them for 
people. Mary was always the leader, both in praying 
and preaching, and the others were good listeners. Mrs. 
Rice would be so much amused at the queer scene, that a 
smile would creep over her face; but Mr. Rice would look 
on reverently, and say, “I wish you had been a boy; you 
could have been trained for the ministry.” 

When she was twelve years old she began to be eager 
to earn something. She could not bear to see her father 
work so hard for her. Alas! how often young women, 
twice twelve, allow their father’s hair to grow white from 
overwork, because they think society will look down upon 
them if they labor. Is work more a disgrace to a girl 
than a boy? Not at all. Unfortunate is the young man 
who marries a girl who is either afraid or ashamed to 
work. 

Though not fond of sewing, Mary decided to learn 
dressmaking, because this would give her self-support. 
For three months she worked in a shop, that she might 
learn the trade, and then she stayed three months longer 
and earned thirty-seven cents a day. As this seemed 
meagre, she looked about her for more work. Going to 
a clothing establishment, she asked for a dozen red flannel 
shirts to make. The proprietor might have wondered 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


141 

who the child was, but he trusted her honest face, and 
gave her the bundle. She was to receive six and a quarter 
cents apiece, and to return them on a certain day. Work¬ 
ing night after night, sometimes till the early morning 
hours, she was able to finish only half at the time speci¬ 
fied. 

On that day a man came to the door and asked, “Does 
Mary Rice live here?” 

The mother had gone to the door, and answered in the 
affirmative. 

“Well, she took a dozen red flannel shirts from my shop 
to make, and she hain’t returned ’em!” 

“It can’t be my daughter,” said Mrs. Rice. 

The man was sure he had the right number, but he 
looked perplexed. Just then Mary, who was in the sit¬ 
ting-room, appeared on the scene. 

“Yes, mother, I got these shirts of the man.” 

“You promised to get ’em done, Miss,” he said, “and 
we are in a great hurry.” 

“You shall have the shirts to-morrow night,” said Mrs. 
Rice. 

After the man left the house, the mother burst into 
tears, saying, “We are not so poor as that. My dear 
child, what is to become of you if you take all the cares 
of the world upon your shoulders?” 

When the work was done, and the seventy-five cents re¬ 
ceived, Mary would take only half of it, because she had 
earned but half. 

A brighter day was dawning for Mary Rice. A little 
later, longing for an education, Dr. Meale, their good min¬ 
ister, encouraged and assisted her to go to the Charles¬ 
town Female Seminary. Before the term closed one of 
the teachers died, and the bright, earnest pupil was asked 
to fill the vacancy. She accepted, reciting out of school 
to fit herself for her classes, earning enough by her teach- 


142 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


ing to pay her way, and taking the four years’ course in 
two years. Before she was twenty she taught two years 
on a Virginia plantation as a governess, and came North 
with six hundred dollars and a good supply of clothes. 
She had never felt so rich in her life. 

She was now asked to take charge of the Duxbury 
High School, where she became an inspiration to her 
scholars. Even the dullest learned under her enthusiasm. 
She took long walks to keep up her health and spirits, 
thus making her body as vigorous as her heart was sym¬ 
pathetic. 

It was not to be wondered at that the bright young 
teacher had many admirers. Who ever knew an edu¬ 
cated, genial girl who was not a favorite with young 
men? It is a libel on the sex to think that they prefer ig¬ 
norant or idle girls. 

Among those who saw the beauty of character and the 
mental power of Miss Rice was a young minister, whose 
church was near her schoolhouse. The first time she at¬ 
tended his services, he preached from the text, “And thou 
shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from 
their sins.” Her sister had died, and the family were in 
sorrow; but this gospel of love, which he preached with 
no allusion of eternal punishment, was full of comfort. 
What was the minister’s surprise to have the young lady 
ask to take home the sermon and read it, and afterwards, 
some of his theological books. What was the teacher’s 
surprise, a little later, to find that while she was interested 
in his sermons and books, he had become interested in 
her. The sequel can be guessed easily; she became the 
wife of Rev. D. P. Livermore at twenty-three. 

He had idolized his mother: very naturally, with deep 
reverence for women, he would make a devoted husband. 
For fifteen years the intelligent wife aided him in editing 
The New Covenant, a religious paper published in Chi- 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


143 


cago, in which city they had made their home. Her writ¬ 
ings were always clear, strong, and helpful. Three chil¬ 
dren had been born into their home, and life, with its 
cares and its work, was a very happy one. 

But the time came for the quiet life to be entirely 
changed. In 1861 the nation found itself plunged into 
war. The slave question was to be settled once for all 
at the point of the bayonet. Like every other true¬ 
hearted woman, Mrs. Livermore had been deeply stirred 
by passing events. When Abraham Lincoln’s call for 
seventy-five thousand men was eagerly responded to, she 
was in Boston, and saw the troops, all unused to hard¬ 
ships, start for the battle-fields. The streets were 
crowded with tens of thousands. Bells rang, bands 
played, and women smiled and said good-bye, when their 
hearts were breaking. After the train moved out of the 
station, four women fainted; nature could no longer bear 
the terrible strain. Mrs. Livermore helped restore the 
women to consciousness. She had no sons to send; but 
when such partings were seen, and such sorrows were in 
the future, she could not rest. 

What could women do to help in the dreadful struggle? 
A meeting of New York ladies was called, which resulted 
in the formation of an Aid Society, pledging loyalty to 
the Government, and promising assistance to soldiers and 
their families. Two gentlemen were sent to Washington 
to ask what work could be done, but word came back that 
there was no place for women at the front, nor no need 
for them in the hospitals. Such words were worse than 
wasted on American women. Since the day when men 
and women together breasted the storms of New Eng¬ 
land in the Mayflower, and together planted a new civ¬ 
ilization, together they have worked side by side in all 
great matters. They were untiring in the Revolutionary 
War; they worked faithfully in the dark days of anti- 


144 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


slavery agitation, taking their very lives in their hands. 
And now their husbands and sons and brothers had gone 
from their homes. They would die on battle-fields, and 
in lonely camps untended, and the women simply said, 
“Some of us must follow our best-beloved.” 

The United States Sanitary Commission was soon or¬ 
ganized, for working in hospitals, looking after camps, 
and providing comforts for the soldiers. Branch associa¬ 
tions were formed in ten large cities. The great North¬ 
western Branch was put under the leadership of Mrs. 
Livermore and Mrs. A. H. Hoge. Useful things began 
to pour in from all over the country—fruits, clothing, 
bedding, and all needed comforts for the army. Then 
Mrs. Livermore, now a woman of forty, with great execu¬ 
tive ability, warm heart, courage, and perseverance, with 
a few others, went to Washington to talk with President 
Lincoln. 

“Can no women go to the front?” they asked. 

“No civilian, either man or woman, is permitted by 
law,” said Mr. Lincoln. But the great heart of the great¬ 
est man in America was superior to the law, and he placed 
not a straw in their way. He was in favor of anything 
which helped the men who fought and bled for their 
country. 

Mrs. Livermore’s first broad experience in the war was 
after the battle of Fort Donelson. There were no hos¬ 
pitals for the men, and the wounded were hauled down 
the hillside in rough-board Tennessee wagons, most of 
them dying before they reached St. Louis. Some poor 
fellows lay with the frozen earth around them, chopped 
out after lying in the mud from Saturday morning until 
Sunday evening. 

One blue-eyed lad of nineteen, with both legs and both 
arms shattered, when asked, “How did it happen that you 
were left so long?” said, “Why, you see, they couldn’t 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 









MARY A. LIVERMORE 


145 


stop to bother with us, because they had to take the fort. 
When they took it, we forgot our sufferings, and all over 
the battle-field cheers went up from the wounded, and 
even from the dying.” 

At the rear of the battle-fields the Sanitary Commis¬ 
sion now began to keep its wagons with hot soup and hot 
coffee, women, fitly chosen, always joining in this work, 
in the midst of danger. After the first repulse at Vicks¬ 
burg, there was great sickness and suffering. The Com¬ 
mission sent Mrs. Hoge, two gentlemen accompanying 
her, with a boat-load of supplies for the sick. One emaci¬ 
ated soldier, to whom she gave a little package of white 
sugar, with a lemon, some green tea, two herrings, two 
onions, and some pepper, said, “Is that all for me?” She 
bowed assent. She says: “He covered his pinched face 
with his thin hands and burst into a low, sobbing cry. 
I laid my hand upon his shoulder, and said, ‘Why do you 
weep?’ ‘God bless the women!’ he sobbed out. ‘What 
should we do but for them ? I came from father’s farm, 
where all knew plenty; I’ve lain sick these three months; 
I’ve seen no woman’s face, nor heard her voice, nor felt 
her warm hand till to-day, and it unmans me; but don’t 
think I rue my bargain, for I don’t. I’ve suffered much 
and long, but don’t let them know at home. Maybe I’ll 
never have a chance to tell them how much; but I’d go 
through it all for the old flag.’ ” 

Shortly after, accompanied by an officer, she went into 
the rifle-pits. The heat was stifling, and the minie-balls 
were whizzing. “Why, madam, where did you come 
from? Did you drop from heaven into these rifle-pits? 
You are the first lady we have seen here”; and then the 
voice was choked with tears. 

“I have come from your friends at home, and bring 
messages of love and honor. I have come to bring you 
the comforts we owe you, and love to give. I’ve come 


146 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


to see if you receive what they send you,” she replied. 

“Do you think as much of us as that? Why, boys, 
we can fight another year on that, can’t we?” 

“Yes, yes!” they cried, and almost every hand was 
raised to brush away the tears. 

She made them a kindly talk, shook the hard, honest 
hands, and said good-bye. “Madam,” said the officer, 
“promise me that you’ll visit my regiment to-morrow; 
’twould be worth a victory to them. You don’t know 
what good a lady’s visit to the army does. These men 
whom you have seen to-day will talk of your visit for 
six months to come. Around the fires, in the rifle-pits, 
in the dark night, or on the march, they will repeat your 
words, describe your looks, voice, size, and dress; and all 
agree in one respect,—that you look like an angel, and ex¬ 
actly like each man’s wife or mother.” Ah! was there 
no work for women to do? 

The Sanitary and Christian Commissions expended 
about fifty million dollars during the war, and of this, 
the women raised a generous portion. Each battle cost 
the Sanitary Commission about seventy-five thousand 
dollars, and the Battle of Gettysburg, a half million dol¬ 
lars. Mrs. Livermore was one of the most efficient help¬ 
ers in raising this money. She went among the people, 
and solicited funds and supplies of every kind. 

One night it was arranged that she should speak in 
Dubuque, Iowa, that the people of that State might hear 
directly from their soldiers at the front. When she ar¬ 
rived, instead of finding a few women as she had expected, 
a large church was packed with both men and women 
eager to listen. The governor of the State and other 
officials were present. She had never spoken in a mixed 
assembly. Her conservative training made her shrink 
from it, and, unfortunately, made her feel incapable of 
doing it. 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


147 

‘“I cannot speak!” she said to the women who had 
asked her to come. 

Disappointed and disheartened, they finally arranged 
with a prominent statesman to jot down the facts from 
her lips; and then, as best he could, tell to the audience 
the experiences of the woman who had been on battle¬ 
fields, amid the wounded and dying. Just as they were 
about to go upon the platform, the gentleman said, “Mrs. 
Livermore, I have heard you say at the front, that you 
would give your all for the soldiers,—a foot, a hand, or a 
voice. Now is the time to give your voice, if you wish 
to do good.” 

She meditated a moment, and then she said, “I will 
try.” 

When she arose to speak, the sea of faces before her 
seemed blurred. She was talking into blank darkness. 
She could not even hear her own voice. But as she went 
on, and the needs of the soldiers crowded upon her mind, 
she forgot all fear, and for two hours held the audience 
spell-bound. Men and women wept, and patriotism filled 
every heart. At eleven o’clock eight thousand dollars 
were pledged, and then, at the suggestion of the presiding 
officer, they remained until one o’clock to perfect plans 
for a fair, from which they cleared sixty thousand dollars. 
After this, Mrs. Livermore spoke in hundreds of 
towns, helping to organize many of the more than 
twelve thousand aid societies formed during eighteen 
months. 

As money became more and more needed, Mrs. Liver¬ 
more decided to try a sanitary commission fair in Chi¬ 
cago. The women said, “We will raise twenty-five thou¬ 
sand dollars,” but the men laughed at such an impossibil¬ 
ity. The farmers were visited, and solicited to give vege¬ 
tables and grain, while the cities were not forgotten. 
Fourteen of Chicago’s largest halls were hired. The 


148 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


women had gone into debt ten thousand dollars, and the 
men of the city began to think they were crazy. The 
Board of Trade called upon them and advised that the 
fair be given up; the debts should be paid, and the men 
would give the twenty-five thousand, when, in their judg¬ 
ment, it was needed! The women thanked them cour¬ 
teously, but pushed forward in the work. 

It had been arranged that the farmers should come on 
the opening day, in a procession, with their gifts of vege¬ 
tables. Of this plan the newspapers made great sport, 
calling it the “potato procession.” The day came. The 
school children had a holiday, the bells were rung, one 
hundred guns were fired, and the whole city gathered 
to see the “potato procession.” Finally it arrived,— 
great loads of cabbages, onions, and over four thousand 
bushels of potatoes. The wagons each bore a motto, 
draped in black, with the words, “We buried a son at 
Donelson,” “Our father lies at Stone River,” and other 
similar ones. The flags on the horses’ heads were bound 
with black; the women who rode beside a husband or son, 
were dressed in deep mourning. When the procession 
stopped before Mrs. Livermore’s house, the jeers were 
over, and the dense crowd wept like children. 

Six of the public halls were filled with beautiful things 
for sale, while eight were closed so that no other attrac¬ 
tions might compete with the fair. Instead of twenty- 
five thousand, the women cleared one hundred thousand 
dollars. 

Then Cincinnati followed with a fair, making two hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five thousand; Boston, three hundred 
and eighty thousand; New York, one million; and Phil¬ 
adelphia, two hundred thousand more than New York. 
The women had found that there was work enough for 
them to do. 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


149 


Mrs. Livermore was finally ordered to make a tour of 
the hospitals and military posts on the Mississippi River, 
and here her aid was invaluable. It required a remark¬ 
able woman to undertake such a work. At one point 
she found twenty-three men, sick and wounded, whose 
regiments had left them, and who could not be discharged 
because they had no descriptive lists. She went at once 
to General Grant, and said, “General, if you will give me 
authority to do so, I will agree to take these twenty-three 
wounded men home.” 

The officials respected the noble woman, and the red 
tape of army life was broken for her sake. When the 
desolate company arrived in Chicago, on Saturday, the 
last train had left which could have taken a Wisconsin 
soldier home. She took him to the hotel, had a fire made 
for him, and called a doctor. 

“Pull him through till Monday, Doctor,” she said, “and 
I’ll get him home.” Then, to the lad, “You shall have 
a nurse, and Monday morning I will go with you to 
your mother.” 

“Oh, don’t go away,” he pleaded; “I never shall see 
you again.” 

“Well, then, I’ll go home and see my family, and come 
back in two hours. The door shall be left open, and I’ll 
put this bell beside you, so that the chambermaid will come 
when you ring.” 

He consented, and Mrs. Livermore came back in two 
hours. The soldier’s face was turned toward the door, 
as though waiting for her, but he was dead. He had 
gone home, but not to Wisconsin. 

After the close of the war, so eager were the people to 
hear her, that she entered the lecture field and for years 
held the foremost place among women as a public speaker. 
She lectured five nights a week, for five months, travelling 


MARY A. LIVERMORE 


150 

twenty-five thousand miles each year. Her fine voice, 
womanly, dignified manner, and able thought brought 
crowded houses before her, year after year. 

Mrs. Livermore spent ten years in the temperance re¬ 
form. While she showed the dreadful results of the 
liquor traffic, she was kind both in word and deed. Pass¬ 
ing along a Boston street, she saw a man in the ditch, and 
a poor woman bending over him. 

“Who is he?” she asked of the woman. 

“He’s my husband, ma’am. He’s a good man when 
he’s sober, and earns four dollars a day in the foundry. 
I keep a saloon.” 

Mrs. Livermore called a hack. “Will you carry this 
man to number-?” 

“No, madam, he’s too dirty. I won’t soil my car¬ 
riage.” 

“Oh!” pleaded the wife, “I’ll clean it all up for ye, if 
ye’ll take him,” and pulling off her dress-skirt, she tried 
to wrap it around her husband. Stepping to a saloon 
near by, Mrs. Livermore asked the men to come out and 
help lift him. At first they laughed, but were soon made 
ashamed, when they saw that a lady was assisting. The 
drunken man was gotten upon his feet, wrapped in his 
wife’s clothing, put into the hack, and then Mrs. Liver¬ 
more and the wife got in beside him, and he was taken 
home. The next day the good Samaritan called, and 
brought the priest, from whom the man took the pledge. 
A changed family was the result. 

Her life was filled with thousands of acts of kindness, 
on the cars, in the poor homes, and in various charitable 
institutions. She was the author of two books, What 
Shall We Do with Our Daughters? and Reminiscences of 
the War; but her especial power was her eloquent words, 
spoken all over the country, in pulpits, before colleges, in 
city and country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. 



MARY A. LIVERMORE 


151 

Like Abraham Lincoln, who said, “I go for all sharing 
the privileges of the government, who assist in bear¬ 
ing its burdens,—by no means excluding women,’’ she 
advocated the enfranchisement of her sex, along with 
her other work. 

Mrs. Livermore died at her home, at Melrose, Mass. 
May 23, 1905, of bronchitis. She was in her eighty- 
fourth year, and had survived her husband six years. 
When her funeral services were held, the schools of Mel¬ 
rose closed, business was suspended, bells were tolled, and 
flags floated at half-mast. Her death came as a summons 
to well-earned rest, after a singularly useful life. 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


Margaret Fuller, in some respects the most remark¬ 
able of American women, lived a pathetic life and died 
a tragic death. Without money and without beauty, she 
became the idol of an immense circle of friends; men and 
women were alike her devotees. It is the old story: that 
the woman of brain makes lasting conquests of hearts, 
while the pretty face holds its sway only for a month or 
a year. 

Margaret, born in Cambridgeport, Mass., May 23, 
1810, was the oldest child of a scholarly lawyer, Mr. Tim¬ 
othy Fuller, and a sweet-tempered, devoted mother. The 
father, with small means, had one absorbing purpose in 
life,—to see that each of his children was finely educated. 
To do this, and to make ends meet, was a struggle. His 
daughter said, years after, in writing of him: “His love 
for my mother was the green spot on which he stood apart 
from the commonplaces of a mere bread-winning exist¬ 
ence. She was one of those fair and flower-like natures, 
which sometimes spring up even beside the most dusty 
highways of life. Of all persons whom I have known, 
she had in her most of the angelic,—of that spontaneous 
love for every living thing, for man and beast and tree, 
which restores the Golden Age.” 

Very fond of his oldest child, Margaret, the father de¬ 
termined that she should be as well educated as his boys. 
In those days there were no colleges for girls, and none 
where they might enter with their brothers, so that Mr. 

Fuller was obliged to teach his daughter after the wearing 

152 


MARGARET PULLER OSSOLI 


153 


work of the day. The bright child began to read Latin 
at six, but was necessarily kept up late for the recitation. 
When a little later she was walking in her sleep, and 
dreaming strange dreams, he did not see that he was over¬ 
taxing both body and brain. When the lessons had been 
learned, she would go into the library, and read eagerly. 
One Sunday afternoon, when she was eight years old, 
she took down Shakespeare from the shelves, opened at 
Romeo and Juliet, and soon became fascinated with the 
story. 

“What are you reading?” asked her father. 

“Shakespeare,” was the answer, not lifting her eyes 
from the page. 

“That won’t do—that’s no book for Sunday; go put 
it away, and take another.” 

Margaret did as she was bidden; but the temptation 
was too strong, and the book was soon in her hands again. 

“What is that child about, that she doesn’t hear a word 
we say?” said an aunt. 

Seeing what she was reading, the father said, angrily, 
“Give me the book, and go directly to bed.” 

There could have been a wiser and gentler way of con¬ 
trol, but he had not learned that it is better to lead chil¬ 
dren than to drive them. 

When not reading, Margaret enjoyed her mother’s 
little garden of flowers. “I loved,” she says, “to gaze on 
the roses, the violets, the lilies, the pinks; my mother’s 
hand had planted them, and they bloomed for me. I 
kissed them, and pressed them to my bosom with pas¬ 
sionate emotions. An ambition swelled my heart to be as 
beautiful, as perfect as they.” 

Margaret grew to fifteen with an exuberance of life 
and affection, which the chilling atmosphere of that New 
England home somewhat suppressed, and with an increas¬ 
ing love for books and cultured people. “I rise a little 


154 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


before five,” she writes, “walk an hour, and then practise 
on the piano till seven, when we breakfast. Next, I read 
French—Sismondi’s Literature of the South of Europe — 
till eight; then two or three lectures in Brown’s Philoso¬ 
phy. About half past nine I go to Mr. Perkin’s school, 
and study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dis¬ 
missed, I recite, go home, and practise again till dinner, 
at two. Then, when I can, I read two hours in Italian.” 

And why all this hard work for a girl of fifteen ? The 
“all-powerful motive of ambition,” she says. “I am de¬ 
termined on distinction, which formerly I thought to win 
at an easy rate ; but now I see that long years of labor 
must be given.” 

She had learned the secret of most prominent lives. 
The majority in this world will always be mediocre, be¬ 
cause they lack high-minded ambition and the willingness 
to work. 

Two years after, at seventeen, she writes: “I am 
studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, 
and the Castilian ballads, with great delight. ... I am 
engrossed in reading the elder Italian poets, beginning 
with Berni, from whom I shall proceed to Pulci and Poli- 
tan.” How almost infinitely above “beaus and dresses” 
was such intellectual work as this! 

It was impossible for such a girl not to influence the 
mind of every person she met. At nineteen she became 
the warm friend of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, “whose 
friendship,” he says, “was to me a gift of the gods. . . . 
With what eagerness did she seek for knowledge! What 
fire, what exuberance, what reach, grasp, overflow of 
thought, shone in her conversation! . . . And what she 
thus was to me, she was to many others. Inexhaustible 
in power of insight, and with a good will ‘broad as ether,’ 
she could enter into the needs, and sympathize with the 
various excellences, of the greatest variety of characters. 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


155 


One thing only she demanded of all her friends, that they 
should not be satisfied with the common routine of life, 
—that they should aspire to something higher, better, 
holier, than they had now attained.” 

Witty, learned, imaginative, she was conceded to be the 
best conversationalist in any circle. She possessed the 
charm that every woman may possess,—appreciation of 
others, and interest in their welfare. This sympathy un¬ 
locked every heart to her. She was made the confidante 
of thousands. All classes loved her. Now it was a 
serving girl who told Margaret her troubles and her cares; 
now it was a distinguished man of letters. She was al¬ 
ways an inspiration. Men never talked idle, common¬ 
place talk with her; she could appreciate the best of their 
minds and hearts, and they gave it. She was fond of 
social life, and no party seemed complete without her. 

At twenty-two she began to study German, and in three 
months was reading with ease Goethe’s Faust, Tasso and 
Iphigenia, Korner, Richter, and Schiller. She greatly ad¬ 
mired Goethe, desiring, like him, “always to have some 
engrossing object of pursuit.” Besides all this study she 
was teaching six little children, to help bear the expenses 
of the household. 

The family at this time moved to Gorton, a great pri¬ 
vation for Margaret, who enjoyed and needed the cul¬ 
ture of Boston society. But she says, “As, sad or merry, 
I must always be learning, I laid down a course of study 
at the beginning of the winter.” This consisted of the 
history and geography of modern Europe, and of Amer¬ 
ica, architecture, and the works of Alfieri, Goethe, and 
Schiller. The teaching was continued because her broth¬ 
ers must be sent to Harvard College, and this re¬ 
quired money; not the first nor the last time that sisters 
have worked to give brothers an education superior to 
their own. 


156 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


At last the constitution, never robust, broke down, and 
for nine days Margaret lay hovering between this world 
and the next. The tender mother called her “dear lamb,” 
and watched her constantly, while the stern father, who 
never praised his children, lest it might harm them, said, 
“My dear, I have been thinking of you in the night, and 
I cannot remember that you have any faults. You have 
defects, of course, as all mortals have, but I do not know 
that you have a single fault.” 

While Margaret recovered, the father was taken sud¬ 
denly with cholera, and died after a two days’ illness. 
He was sadly missed, for at heart he was devoted to his 
family. When the estate was settled, there was little left 
for each; so for Margaret life would be more laborious 
than ever. She had expected to visit Europe with Har¬ 
riet Martineau, who was just returning home from a visit 
to this country, but the father’s death crushed this long- 
cherished and ardently-prayed-for journey. She must 
stay at home and work for others. 

Books were read now more eagerly than ever,— Sartor 
Resartus, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Heine. But 
money must be earned. Ah! if genius could only develop 
in ease and prosperity. It rarely has the chance. The 
tree grows best when the dirt is oftenest stirred about 
the roots; perhaps the best in us comes only from such 
stirring. 

Margaret now obtained a situation as teacher of French 
and Latin in Bronson Alcott’s school. Here she was ap¬ 
preciated by both master and pupils. Mr. Alcott said, “I 
think her the most brilliant talker of the day. She has 
a quick and comprehensive wit, a firm command of her 
thoughts, and a speech to win the ear of the most culti- 
\ated.” She taught advanced classes in German and Ital¬ 
ian, besides having several private pupils. 

Before this time she had become a valued friend of the 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


157 


Emerson famiy. Mr. Emerson says, “Sometimes she 
stayed a few days, often a week, more seldom a month, 
and all tasks that could be suspended were put aside to 
catch the favorable hour in walking, riding, or boating, 
to talk with this joyful guest, who brought wit, anecdotes, 
love-stories, tragedies, oracles with her. . . . The day was 
never long enough to exhaust her opulent memory and I, 
who knew her intimately for ten years, never saw her 
without surprise at her new powers/’ 

She was passionately fond of music and of art, saying, 
“I have been very happy with four hundred and seventy 
designs of Raphael in my possession for a week.” She 
loved nature like a friend, paying homage to rocks and 
woods and flowers. She said, “I hate not to be beautiful 
when all around is so.” 

After teaching with Mr. Alcott, she became the princi¬ 
pal teacher in a school at Providence, R. I. Here, as 
ever, she showed great wisdom both with children and 
adults. The little folks in the house were allowed to 
look at the gifts of many friends in her room, on condi¬ 
tion that they should not touch them. One day a young 
visitor came, and insisted on taking down a microscope, 
and broke it. The child who belonged in the house was 
well-nigh heart-broken over the affair, and, though pro¬ 
testing her innocence, was suspected both of the deed and 
of falsehood. Miss Fuller took the weeping child upon 
her knee, saying, “Now, my dear little girl, tell me all 
about it; only remember that you must be careful, for 1 
shall believe every word you say.” Investigation showed 
that the child thus confided in told the whole truth. 

After two years in Providence she returned to Boston, 
and in 1839 began a series of parlor lectures, or “conversa¬ 
tions,” as they were called. This seemed a strange thing 
for a woman, when public speaking by her sex was al¬ 
most unknown. These talks were given weekly, from 


158 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


eleven o’clock till one, to twenty-five or thirty of the most 
cultivated women of the city. Now the subject of discus¬ 
sion was Grecian mythology; now it was fine arts, educa¬ 
tion, or the relations of woman to the family, the church, 
society, and literature. These meetings were continued 
through five winters, supplemented by evening “conversa¬ 
tions,” attended by both men and women. In these gath¬ 
erings Margaret was at her best,—brilliant, eloquent, 
charming. 

During this time a few gifted men, Emerson, Chann- 
ing, and others decided to start a literary and philosophi¬ 
cal magazine called the Dial. Probably no woman in the 
country would have been chosen as the editor, save Mar¬ 
garet Fuller. She accepted the position, and for four 
years managed the journal ably, writing for it some valua¬ 
ble essays. Some of these were published later in her 
book on Literature and Art. Her Woman in the Nine¬ 
teenth Century, a learned and vigorous essay on woman’s 
place in the world, first appeared in part in the Dial. 
Of this work, she said, in closing it, “After taking a 
long walk, early one most exhilarating morning, I sat 
down to work, and did not give it the last stroke till near 
nine in the evening. Then I felt a delightful glow, as if 
I had put a good deal of my true life in it, and as if, 
should I go away now, the measure of my footprint would 
be left on the earth.” 

Miss Fuller had published, besides these works, two 
books of translations from the German, and a sketch of 
travel called Summer on the Lakes. Her experience was 
like that of most authors who are beginning,—some fame, 
but no money realized. All this time she was frail in 
health, overworked, struggling against odds to make a 
living for herself and those she loved. But there were 
some compensations in this life of toil. One person wrote 
her, “What I am I owe in large measure to the stimulus 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


159 


you imparted. You roused my heart with high hopes; 
you raised my aims from paltry and vain pursuits to 
those which lasted and fed the soul; you inspired me with 
a great ambition, and made me see the worth and the 
meaning of life.” 

William Hunt, the renowned artist, was looking in a 
book that lay on the table of a friend. It was Mrs. Jame¬ 
son’s Italian Painters. In describing Correggio, she said 
he was “one of those superior beings of whom there are 
so few.” Margaret had written on the margin, “And 
yet all might be such.” Mr. Hunt said, “These words 
struck out a new strength in me. They revived resolu¬ 
tions long fallen away, and made me set my face like a 
flint.” 

Margaret was now thirty-four. The sister was mar¬ 
ried, the brothers had finished their college course, and 
she was about to accept an offer from the New York Tri¬ 
bune to become one of its constant contributors, an honor 
that few women had ever received. Early in Decem¬ 
ber, 1844, Margaret moved to New York and became a 
member of Mr. Greeley’s family. Her literary work 
here was that of, says Mr. Higginson, “the best literary 
critic whom America has yet seen.” 

Sometimes her reviews, like those on the poetry of 
Longfellow and Lowell, were censured, but she was im¬ 
partial and able. Society opened wide its doors to her, 
as it had in Boston. Mrs. Greeley became her devoted 
friend, and their little son “Pickie,” five years old, the 
idol of Mr. Greeley, her restful playmate. 

A year and a half later an opportunity came for Mar¬ 
garet to go to Europe. Now, at last, she would see the 
art-galleries of the old world, and places rich in history, 
like Rome. Still there was the trouble of scanty means, 
and poor health from overwork. She said, “A noble 
career is yet before me, if I can be unimpeded by cares. 


160 MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 

If our family affairs could now be so arranged that I 
might be tolerably tranquil for the next six or eight years, 
I should go out of life better satisfied with the page I 
have turned in it than I shall if I must still toil on.” 

After two weeks on the ocean, the party of friends ar¬ 
rived in London, and Miss Fuller received a cordial wel¬ 
come. Wordsworth, now seventy-six, showed her the 
lovely scenery of Rydal Mount, pointing out as his es¬ 
pecial pride, his avenue of hollyhocks—crimson, straw- 
color, and white. De Quincey showed her many courte¬ 
sies. Dr. Chalmers talked eloquently, while William and 
Mary Howitt seemed like old friends. Carlyle invited 
her to his home. “To interrupt him,” she said, “is a 
physical impossibility. If you get a chance to remons¬ 
trate for a moment, he raises his voice and bears you 
down.” 

In Paris, Margaret attended the Academy lectures, saw 
much of George Sand, waded through melting snow at 
Avignon to see Laura's tomb, and at last was in Italy, the 
country she had longed to see. Here Mrs. Jameson, Pow¬ 
ers, and Greenough, and the Brownings and Storys, were 
her warm friends. Here she settled down to systematic 
work, trying to keep her expenses for six months within 
four hundred dollars. Still, when most cramped for 
means herself, she was always generous. Once, when 
living on a mere pittance, she loaned fifty dollars to a 
needy artist. In New York she gave an impecunious 
author five hundred dollars to publish his book, and, of 
course, never received a dollar in return. Yet the race for 
life was wearing her out. So tired was she that she 
said, “I should like to go to sleep, and be born again into 
a state where my young life should not be prematurely 
taxed.” 

Meantime the struggle for Italian unity was coming 
to its climax. Mazzini and his followers were eager for 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


161 


a republic. Pius IX, had given promises to the Liberal 
party, but afterwards abandoned it, and fled to Gaeta. 
Then Mazzini turned for help to the President of the 
French Republic, Louis Napoleon, who, in his heart, had 
no love for republics, but sent an army to reinstate the 
Pope. Rome, when she found herself betrayed, fought 
like a tiger. Men issued from the workshops with their 
tools for weapons, while women from the housetops urged 
them on. One night over one hundred and fifty bombs 
were thrown into the heart of the city. 

Margaret was the friend of Mazzini, and enthusiastic 
for Roman liberty. All those dreadful months she ad¬ 
ministered to the wounded and dying in the hospitals, and 
was their “saint,” as they called her. But there was an¬ 
other reason why Margaret Fuller loved Italy. 

Soon after her arrival in Rome, as she was attending 
vespers at St. Peter’s with a party of friends, she be¬ 
came separated from them. Failing to find them, seeing 
her anxious face, a young Italian came up to her, and 
politely offered to assist her. Unable to regain her 
friends, Angelo Ossoli walked with her to her home, 
though he could speak no English, and she almost no Ital¬ 
ian. She learned afterward that he was of a noble and 
refined family; that his brothers were in the Papal army, 
and that he was highly respected. 

After this he saw Margaret once or twice, before she 
left Rome for some months. On her return, he renewed 
the acquaintance, shy and quiet though he was for her 
influence seemed great over him. His father, the Marquis 
Ossoli, had just died, and Margaret, with her large heart, 
sympathized with him, as she alone knew how to sympa¬ 
thize. He joined the Liberals, thus separating himself 
from his family, and was made a captain of the Civic 
Guard. 

Finally he confessed to Margaret that he loved her, 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


162 

and that he “must marry her or be miserable.” She re¬ 
fused to listen to him as a lover, said he must marry a 
younger woman,—she was thirty-seven, and he but thirty, 
—but she would be his friend. For weeks he was de¬ 
jected and unhappy. She debated the matter with her 
own heart. Should she, who had had many admirers, 
now marry a man her junior, and not of surpassing intel¬ 
lect, like her own? If she married him, it must be kept a 
secret till his father’s estate was settled, for marriage with 
a Protestant would spoil all prospect of an equitable divi¬ 
sion. 

Love conquered, and she married the young Marquis 
Ossoli in December, 1847. He gave to Margaret the kind 
of love which lasts after marriage, veneration of her abil¬ 
ity and her goodness. “Such tender, unselfish love,” 
writes Mrs. Story, “I have rarely before seen; it made 
green her days, and gave her an expression of peace and 
serenity which before was a stranger to her. When she 
was ill, he nursed and watched over her with the tender¬ 
ness of a woman. No service was too trivial, no sacri¬ 
fice too great for him. ‘How sweet it is to do little things 
for you,’ he would say.” 

To her mother Margaret wrote, though she did not 
tell her secret, “I have not been so happy since I was a 
child, as during the last six weeks.” 

But days of anxiety soon came, with all the horrors 
of war. Ossoli was constantly exposed to death, in that 
dreadful siege of Rome. Then Rome fell, and with it the 
hopes of Ossoli and his wife. There would be neither 
fortune nor home for a Liberal now—only exile. Very 
sadly Margaret said good-bye to the soldiers in the hospi¬ 
tals, brave fellows whom she honored, who in the midst 
of death itself, would cry “Viva 1 ’ Italia!” 

But before leaving Rome, a day’s journey must be 
made to Rieta, at the foot of the Umbrian Apennines. 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 163 

And for what? The most precious thing of Margaret’s 
life was there,—her baby. The fair child, with blue eyes 
and light hair like her own, had already been named by 
the people in the house, Angelino, from his beauty. She 
had always been fond of children. Emerson’s Waldo, 
for whom Threnody was written was an especial favorite; 
then “Pickie,” Mr. Greeley’s beautiful boy, and now a 
new joy had come into her heart, a child of her own. 
She wrote to her mother: “In him I find satisfaction, for 
the first time, to deep wants of my heart. Nothing but a 
child can take the worst bitterness out of life, and break 
the spell of loneliness. I shall not be alone in other 
worlds whenever Eternity may call me. ... I wake in 
the night,—I look at him. He is so beautiful and good, 
I could die for him!” 

When Ossoli and Margaret reached Rieta, what was 
their horror to find their child worn to a skeleton, half 
starved through the falsity of a nurse. For four weeks 
the distressed parents coaxed him back to life, till the 
sweet beauty of the rounded face came again, and then 
they carried him to Florence, where, despite poverty and 
exile, they were happy. 

“In the morning,” she says, “as soon as dressed, he 
signs to come into our room; then draws our curtain with 
his little dimpled hand, kisses me rather violently, and 
pats my face. ... I feel so refreshed by his young life, 
and Ossoli diffuses such a power and sweetness over every 
day, that I cannot endure to think yet of our future. . . . 
It is very sad we have no money, we could be so quietly 
happy a while. I rejoice in all Ossoli did; but the re¬ 
sults, in this our earthly state, are disastrous, especially 
as my strength is now so impaired. This much I hope, 
.—in life or death, to be no more separated from Ange¬ 
lino.” 

Margaret’s friends now urged her return to America. 


164 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


She had nearly finished a history of Rome in this trying 
time, 1848, and could better attend to its publication in 
this country. Ossoli, though coming to a land of stran¬ 
gers, could find something to help support the family. 

To save expense, they started from Leghorn, May 17, 
1850, in the Elizabeth, a sailing vessel, though Margaret 
dreaded the two months’ voyage, and had premonitions of 
disaster. She wrote: “I have a vague expectation of 
some crisis,—I know not what. But it has long seemed 
that, in the year 1850, I should stand on a plateau in the 
ascent of life, when I should be allowed to pause for a 
while, and take more clear and commanding views than 
ever before. Yet my life proceeds as regularly as the 
fates of a Greek tragedy, and I can but accept the pages 
as they turn. ... I shall embark, praying fervently that 
it may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by un¬ 
solaced illness, or amid the howling waves; or, if so, that 
Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the an¬ 
guish may be brief.” 

For a few days all went well on shipboard; and then 
the noble Captain Hasty died of small-pox, and was bur¬ 
ied at sea. Angelino took this dread disease, and for a 
time his life was despaired of, but he finally recovered, 
and became a great pet with the sailors. Margaret was 
putting the last touches to her book. Ossoli and young 
Sumner, brother of Charles, gave each other lessons in 
Italian and English, and thus the weeks went by. 

On Thursday, July 18, after two months, the Elizabeth 
stood off the Jersey Coast, between Cape May and Barne- 
gat. Trunks were packed, good-nights were spoken, and 
all were happy, for they would be in New York on the 
morrow. At nine that night a gale arose; at midnight it 
was a hurricane; at four o’clock, Friday morning, the 
ship struck Fire Island beach. The passengers sprang 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


165 


from their berths. “We must die!” said Sumner to Mrs. 
Hasty. “Let us die calmly, then!” was the response of 
the widow of the captain. 

At first, as the billows swept over the vessel, Angelino, 
wet and afraid, began to cry; but his mother held him 
closely in her arms and sang him to sleep. Noble cour¬ 
age on a sinking ship! The Italian girl who had come 
with them was in terror; but after Ossoli prayed with 
her, she became calm. For hours they waited anxiously 
for help from the shore. They could see the life-boat, 
and the people collecting the spoils, which had floated 
thither from the ship, but no relief came. One sailor and 
another sprang into the waves and saved themselves. 
Then Sumner jumped overboard, but sank. 

One of the sailors suggested that if each passenger 
sat on a plank, holding on by ropes, they would attempt 
to push him or her to land. Mrs. Hasty was the first to 
venture, and after being twice washed off, half-drowned, 
reached the shore. Then Margaret was urged, but she 
hesitated, unless all three could be saved. Every moment 
the danger increased. The crew were finally ordered “to 
save themselves,” but four remained with the passengers. 
It was useless to look longer to the people on shore for 
help, though it was now past three o’clock,—twelve hours 
since the vessel struck. 

Margaret had finally been induced to try the plank. 
The steward had taken Angelino in his arms, promising 
to save him or die with him, when a strong sea swept the 
forecastle, and all went down together. Ossoli caught 
the rigging for a moment, but Margaret sank at once. 
When last seen, she was seated at the foot of the fore¬ 
mast, still clad in her white nightdress, with her hair 
fallen loose upon her shoulders. Angelino and the stew¬ 
ard were washed upon the beach twenty minutes later, 


MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI 


166 

both dead, though warm. Margaret’s prayer was an¬ 
swered,—that they “might go together, and that the an¬ 
guish might be brief.” 

The pretty boy of two years was dressed in a child’s 
frock taken from his mother’s trunk, which had come to 
shore, laid in a seaman’s chest, and buried in the sand, 
while the sailors, who loved him, stood around, weeping. 
His body was finally removed to Mt. Auburn, and buried 
in the family lot. The bodies of Ossoli and Margaret 
were never recovered. The only papers of value which 
came to shore were their love letters, now deeply prized. 
The book ready for publication was never found. 

When those on shore were asked why they did not 
launch the life-boat, they replied, “Oh! if we had known 
there were any such persons of importance on board, we 
should have tried to do our best!” 

Thus, at forty, died one of the most gifted women in 
America, when her work seemed just begun. To us, who 
see how the world needed her, her death is a mystery ; to 
Him who “worketh all things after the counsel of Llis own 
will” there is no mystery. She filled her life with chari¬ 
ties and her mind with knowledge, and such are ready 
for the progress of Eternity. 


MARIA MITCHELL 


In the quiet, picturesque island of Nantucket, in a sim¬ 
ple home, lived William and Lydia Mitchell with their 
family of ten children. William had been a school-teacher, 
beginning- when he was eighteen years of age, and receiv¬ 
ing two dollars a week in winter, while in summer he 
kept soul and body together by working on a small farm, 
and fishing. 

In this impecunious condition he had fallen in love 
with and married Lydia Coleman, a true-hearted Quaker 
girl, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, one singularly 
fitted to help him make his way in life. She was quick, 
intelligent, and attractive in her usual dress of white, and 
was a clerk of the Friends’ meeting where he attended. 
She was enthusiastic in reading, becoming librarian suc¬ 
cessively of two circulating libraries, till she had read 
every book upon the shelves, and then in the evenings re¬ 
peating what she had read to her associates, her young 
lover among them. 

When they were married, they had nothing but warm 
hearts and willing hands to work together. After a time 
William joined his father in converting a ship-load of 
whale oil into soap, and then a little money was made; 
but at the end of seven years he went back to school¬ 
teaching because he loved the work. At first he had 
charge of a fine grammar school established at Nantucket, 
and later, of a school of his own. 

Into this school came his third child, Maria, shy and 
retiring, with all her mother’s love of reading. Faithful 

at home, with, as she says, “an endless washing of dishes,” 

167 


MARIA MITCHELL 


168 

not to be wondered at where there were ten little folks, 
she was not less faithful at school. The teacher could 
not help seeing that his little daughter had a mind which 
would well repay all the time he could spend upon it. 

While he was a good school-teacher, he was an equally 
good student of nature, born with a love of the heavens 
above him. When eight years old, his father called him 
to the door to look at the planet Saturn, and from that 
time the boy calculated his age from the position of the 
planet, year by year. Always striving to improve him¬ 
self, when he became a man, he built a small observatory 
upon his own land, that he might study the stars. He 
w T as thus enabled to earn one hundred dollars a year in 
the work of the United States Coast Survey. Teaching 
at two dollars a week, and fishing, could not always cramp 
a man of such aspiring mind. 

Brought up beside the sea, he was as broad as the sea 
in his thought and true nobility of character. He could 
see no reason why his daughters should not be just as 
well educated as his sons. He therefore taught Maria the 
same as his boys, giving her especial drill in navigation. 
Perhaps it is not strange that, after such teaching, his 
daughter could have no taste for making worsted work 
or Kensington stitches. She often says to this day, “A 
woman might be learning seven languages while she is 
learning fancy work,” and there is little doubt that 
the seven languages would make her seven times more 
valuable as a wife and mother. If teaching navigation 
to girls would give us a thousand Maria Mitchells in this 
country, by all means let it be taught. 

Maria left the public school at sixteen, and for a year 
attended a private school; then, loving mathematics, and 
being deeply interested in her father’s studies, she became 
at seventeen his helper in the work of the Coast Survey. 
This astronomical labor brought Professors Agassiz, 


MARIA MITCHELL 


169 

Bache, and other noted men to the quiet Mitchell home, 
and thus the girl heard the stimulating conversation of 
superior minds. 

But the family needed more money. Though Mr. 
Mitchell wrote articles for Sillimaris Journal, and de¬ 
livered an able course of lectures before a Boston society 
of which Daniel Webster was president, scientific study 
did not put many dollars in a man’s pocket. An elder sis¬ 
ter was earning three hundred dollars yearly by teaching 
and Maria felt that she too must help more largely to share 
the family burdens. She was offered the position of li¬ 
brarian at the Nantucket library, with a salary of sixty 
dollars the first year, and seventy-five the second. While 
a dollar and twenty cents a week seemed very little, there 
would be much time for study, for the small island did 
not afford a continuous stream of readers. She accepted 
the position, and for twenty years, till youth had been 
lost in middle life, Maria Mitchell worked for one hundred 
dollars a year, studying on, that she might do her noble 
work in the world. 

Did not she who loved nature, long for the open air 
and the blue sky, and for some days of leisure which 
so many girls thoughtlessly waste? Yes, doubtless. 
However, the laws of life are as rigid as mathematics. 
A person cannot idle away the hours and come to promi¬ 
nence. No great singer, no great artist, no great scien¬ 
tist, comes to honor without continuous labor. Society 
devotees are heard of only for a day or a year, while 
those who develop minds and ennoble hearts have lasting 
remembrance. 

Miss Mitchell says, “I was born of only ordinary ca¬ 
pacity, but of extraordinary persistency,” and herein is 
the secret of a great life. She did not dabble in French 
or music or painting and give it up; she went steadily on 
to success. Did she neglect home duties? Never. She 


170 


MARIA MITCHELL 


knit stockings a yard long for her aged father till his 
death, usually studying while she knit. To those who 
learn to be industrious early in life, idleness is never en¬ 
joyable. 

There was another secret of Miss Mitchell’s success. 
She read good books early in life. She says: “We al¬ 
ways had books, and were bookish people. There was a 
public library in Nantucket before I was born. It was 
not a free library; but we always read and studied from 
it. I remember among its volumes Hannah More’s books 
and Rollin’s Ancient History. I remember, too, that 
Charles Folger, the present Secretary of the Treasury, 
and I had both read this latter work through before we 
were ten years old, though neither of us spoke of it to the 
other until a later period.” 

All this study had made Miss Mitchell a superior 
woman. It was not strange, therefore, that fame should 
come to her. One autumn night, October, 1847, she was 
gazing through the telescope, as usual, when, lo! she was 
startled to perceive an unknown comet. She at once told 
her father, who thus wrote to Professor William C. Bond, 
director of the Observatory at Cambridge:— 

My Dear Friend,— I write now merely to say that Maria 
discovered a telescopic comet at half-past ten on the evening 
of the first instant, at that hour nearly above Polaris five 
degrees. Last evening it had advanced westerly; this even¬ 
ing still further, and nearing the pole. It does not bear 
illumination. Maria has obtained its right ascension and 
declination, and will not suffer me to announce it. Pray 
tell me whether it is one of Georgia, and whether it has 
been seen by anybody. Maria supposes it may be an old 
story. If quite convenient, just drop a line to her; it will 
oblige me much. I expect to leave home in a day or two, 
and shall be in Boston next week, and I would like to have 
her hear from you before I can meet you. I hope it will 


MARIA MITCHELL 


171 

not give thee much trouble amidst thy close engagements. 
Our regards are to all of you most truly. 

William Mitchell. 

The answer showed that Miss Mitchell had indeed made 
a new discovery. Frederick VI., King of Denmark, had, 
sixteen years before, offered a gold medal of the value 
of twenty ducats to whomever should discover a telescopic 
comet. That no mistake might be made as to the real dis¬ 
coverer, the condition was made that word be sent at once 
to the Astronomer Royal of England. This the Mitchells 
had not done, on account of their isolated position. Hon. 
Edward Everett, then President of Harvard College, 
wrote to the American Minister at the Danish Court, who 
in turn presented the evidence to the King. “It would 
gratify me,” said Mr. Mitchell, “that this generous mon¬ 
arch should know that there is a love of science even in 
this, to him, remote corner of the earth.” 

The medal was at last awarded, and the woman astron¬ 
omer of Nantucket found herself in the scientific journals 
and In the press as the discoverer of “Miss Mitchell’s 
Comet.” Another had been added to the list of Mary 
Somervilles and Caroline Herschels. Perhaps there was 
additional zest now in the mathematical work in the Coast 
Survey. She also assisted in compiling the American 
Nautical Almanac, and wrote for the scientific period¬ 
icals. Did she break down from her unusual brain work! 
Oh, no! Probably astronomical work was not nearly so 
hard as her mother’s,—care of a house and ten children! 

For ten years more Miss Mitchell worked in the li¬ 
brary, and in studying the heavens. But she had longed 
to see the observatories of Europe, and the great minds 
outside their quiet island. Therefore, in 1857, she visited 
England, and was at once welcomed to the most learned 
circles. Brains always find open doors. Had she been 


172 


MARIA MITCHELL 


rich or beautiful simply, Sir John Llerschel, and Lady 
Herschel as well, would not have reached out both hands, 
and said, “You are always welcome at this house,” and 
given her some of his own calculations and some of his 
Aunt Caroline’s writing. Had she been rich or handsome 
simply, Alexander Von Humboldt would not have taken 
her to his home, and, seating himself beside her on the 
sofa, talked as she says, “on all manner of subjects, and 
on all varieties of people. He spoke of Kansas, India, 
China, observatories; of Bache, Maury, Gould, Ticknor, 
Buchanan, Jefferson, Hamilton, Brunow, Peters, Encke, 
Airy, Leverrier, Mrs. Somerville, and a host of others.” 

What if he had said these things to some women who 
go abroad! It is prudent for women who travel to read 
widely, for ignorance is quickly detected. 

Miss Mitchell said of Humboldt: “He is handsome— 
his hair is thin and white, his eyes very blue. He is a 
little deaf, and so is Mrs. Somerville. He asked me what 
instruments I had, and what I was doing; and when I 
told him that I was interested in the variable stars, he 
said I must go to Bonn and see Agelander.” 

There was no end of courtesies to the scholarly woman. 
Professor Adams, of Cambridge, who, with his charming 
wife, years afterward helped to make our own visit to the 
University a delight, showed her the spot on which he 
made his computations for Neptune, which he discovered 
at the same time as Leverrier. Sir George Airy, the 
Astronomer Royal of England, wrote to Leverrier in 
Paris to announce her coming. When they met, she said, 
“His English was worse than my French.” 

Later she visited Florence, where she met, several times, 
Mrs. Somerville, who, she says, “talks with all the readi¬ 
ness and clearness of a man,” and is still “very gentle 
and womanly, without the least pretence or the least cold¬ 
ness.” She gave Miss Mitchell two of her books, and de- 


MARIA MITCHELL 


173 


sired a photographed star sent to Florence. “She had 
never heard of its being done, and saw at once the impor¬ 
tance of such a step.” She said with her Scotch accent, 
“Miss Mitchell, ye have done yeself great credit.” 

In Rome she saw much of the Hawthornes, of Miss 
Bremer, who was visiting there, and of the artists. From 
here she went to Venice, Vienna, and Berlin, where she 
met Encke, the astronomer, who took her to see the wed¬ 
ding presents of the Princess Royal. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in an admirable sketch of 
Miss Mitchell, tells how the practical woman, with her 
love of republican institutions, was impressed. “The 
presents were in two rooms,” says Miss Mitchell, “tick¬ 
eted and numbered, and a catalogue of them sold. All the 
manufacturing companies availed themselves of the oppor¬ 
tunity to advertise their commodities, I suppose, as she 
had presents of all kinds. What she will do with sixty 
albums I can’t see, but I can understand the use of two 
clothes-lines, because she can lend one to her mother, who 
must have a large Monday’s wash.” 

After a year, Miss Mitchell returned to her simple 
Nantucket home, as devoted to her parents and her scien¬ 
tific work as ever. Two years afterward, in i860, her 
good mother died, and a year later, desiring to be near 
Boston, the family removed to Lynn. Plere Miss Mitch¬ 
ell purchased a small house for sixteen hundred and fifty 
dollars. From her yearly salary of one hundred dollars, 
and what she could earn in her government work, she had 
saved enough to buy a home for her father! The rule 
is that the fathers wear themselves out for daughters; the 
rule was reversed in this case. 

Miss Mitchell now earned five hundred dollars yearly 
for her government computations, while her father re¬ 
ceived a pension of three hundred more for his efficient 
services. Five years thus passed quietly and comfortably. 


174 


MARIA MITCHELL 


Meanwhile another life was carrying out its cherished 
plan, and Miss Mitchell, unknowingly, was to have an im¬ 
portant part in it. Soon after the Revolutionary War 
there came to this country an English wool-grower and 
his family, who settled on a little farm near the Hudson 
River. The mother, a hard-working and intelligent 
woman, was eager in her help toward earning a living, 
and would drive her farm-wagon to market, with butter 
and eggs, and fowls, while her seven-year-old boy sat be¬ 
side her. To increase the income some English ale was 
brewed. The lad grew up with an aversion to making 
beer, and when fourteen, his father insisting that he should 
enter the business, his mother helped him to run away. 
Tying all his worldly possessions, a shirt and a pair of 
stockings, in a cotton handkerchief, the mother and her 
boy walked eight miles below Poughkeepsie when, giv¬ 
ing him all the money she had, seventy-five cents, she 
kissed him, and with tears in her eyes saw him cross the 
ferry and land safely on the other side. He trudged on till 
a place was found in a country store, and here, for five 
years, he worked honestly and industriously, coming 
home to his now reconciled father with one hundred and 
fifty dollars in his pocket. 

Changes had taken place. The father’s brewery had 
burned, the oldest son had been killed in attempting to 
save something from the wreck, all were poorer than 
ever, and there seemed nothing before the boy of nineteen 
but to help support the parents, his two unmarried sisters, 
and two younger brothers. Whether he had the old dis¬ 
like for the ale business or not, he saw therein a means 
of support, and adopted it. The world had not then 
thought so much about the misery which intoxicants cause, 
and had not learned that we are better off without stimu¬ 
lants than with them. 

Every day the young man worked in his brewery, and 


MARIA MITCHELL 


*75 


in the evening till midnight tended a small oyster house, 
which he had opened. Two years later, an Englishman 
who had seen Matthew Vassar’s untiring industry and 
honesty, offered to furnish all the capital which he needed. 
The long, hard road, of poverty had opened at last into 
a field of plenty. Henceforward, while there was to be 
work and economy, there was to be continued prosperity, 
and finally, great wealth. 

Realizing his lack of early education, he began to im¬ 
prove himself by reading science, art, history, poetry, and 
the Bible. He travelled in Europe, and being a close ob¬ 
server, was a constant learner. 

One day, standing by the great London hospital, built 
by Thomas Guy, a relative, and endowed by him with 
over a million dollars, Mr. Vassar read these words on 
the pedestal of the bronze statue:— 

SOLE FOUNDER OF THE HOSPITAL IN HIS LIFETIME 

The last three words left a deep impression on his 
mind. He had no children. He desired to leave his 
money where it would be of permanent value to the 
world. He debated many plans in his own mind. It is 
said that his niece, a hard-working teacher, Lydia Booth, 
finally influenced him to his grand decision. 

There was no real college for women in the land. He 
talked the matter over with his friends, but they were 
full of discouragements. “Women will never desire 
college training,” said some. “They will be ruined in 
health, if they attempt it,” said others. “Science is not 
needed by women; classical education is not needed; they 
must have something appropriate to their sphere,” was 
constantly reiterated. Some wise heads thought they 
knew just what that education should be, and just what 
were the limits of woman’s sphere; but Matthew Vassar 
had his own thoughts. 


i/6 


MARIA MITCHELL 


Calling together, February 26, 1861, some twenty or 
thirty of the men in the State most conversant with edu¬ 
cational matters, the white-haired man, now nearly sev¬ 
enty, laid his hand upon a round tin box, labelled “Vassar 
College Papers,” containing four hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars in bonds and securities, and said: “It has long been 
my desire, after suitably providing for those of my 
kindred who have claims upon me, to make such a disposi¬ 
tion of my means as should best honor God and benefit 
my fellowmen. It is my hope to be the instrument in 
the hands of Providence, of founding and perpetuating 
an institution which shall accomplish for young women 
what our colleges are accomplishing for young men.” 

For four years Matthew Vassar watched the great 
buildings take form and shape in the midst of two hun¬ 
dred acres of lake and river and green sward, near Pough¬ 
keepsie; the main building, five hundred feet long, two 
hundred broad, and five stories high; the museum of nat¬ 
ural history, with school of art and library; the great ob¬ 
servatory, three stories high, furnished with the then third 
largest telescope in the country. 

In 1865 Vassar College was opened, and three hundred 
and fifty students came pouring in from all parts of the 
land. Girls, after all, did desire an education equal to 
that of young men. Matthew Vassar was right. His 
joy seemed complete. He visited the college daily, and 
always received the heartiest welcome. Each year his 
birthday was celebrated as “Founder’s Day.” On one of 
these occasions he said: “This is almost more happi¬ 
ness than I can bear. This one day more than repays me 
for all I have done.” 

After the observatory was completed, there was but 
one wish as to who should occupy it; of course, the per¬ 
son desired was Maria Mitchell. She hesitated to accept 
the position. Pier father was seventy and needed her care, 


MARIA MITCHELL 


177 


but be said, “Go, and I will go with you.” So she left 
her Lynn home for the arduous position of a teacher. 
For four years Mr. Mitchell lived to enjoy the enthusias¬ 
tic work of his gifted daughter. He said, “Among the 
teachers and pupils I have made acquaintances that a 
prince might covet.” 

Miss Mitchell made the observatory her home. Here 
were her books, her pictures, her great astronomical clock, 
and a bust of Mrs. Somerville, the gift of Frances Power 
Cobbe. Here for twenty years she helped to make Vassar 
College known and honored both at home and abroad. 
Hundreds were drawn thither by her name and fame. A 
friend of mine who went, intending to stay two years, 
remained five, for her admiration of and enjoyment in 
Miss Mitchell. She testified: “She is one of the few 
genuine persons I have ever known. There is not one 
particle of deceit about her. For girls who accomplish 
something she has great respect; for idlers, none. She 
has no sentimentality, but much wit and common sense. 
No one can be long under her teaching without learning 
dignity of manner and self-reliance.” 

In the succeeding years the astronomer’s fame stead¬ 
ily increased. In 1868, in the great meteoric shower, she 
and her pupils recorded the paths of four thousand me¬ 
teors, and gave valuable data of their height above the 
earth. In the summer of 1869 she joined the astrono¬ 
mers who went to Burlington, Iowa, to observe the total 
eclipse of the sun, August 7. Her observations on the 
transit of Venus were also valuable. She wrote on the 
Satellites of Saturn, and also prepared a work on the 
Satellites of Jupiter. 

In 1873 s ^ e again visited Europe, spending some time 
with the family of the Russian astronomer, Professor 
Sturve, at the Imperial Observatory at Pultowa. 

Miss Mitchell resigned her position at Vassar in 1888 


lyS 


MARIA MITCHELL 


on account of failing health. She died on the morning 
of June 28, 1889 at Lynn, Mass., at the age of seventy- 
one. She was an honor to her sex, a striking example 
of what a quiet country girl could accomplish, without 
financial or other aid than her indomitable will. 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


A dozen of us sat about the dinner-table at the Hotel 
Bellevue, Boston. One was the gifted wife of a gifted 
clergyman; one had written two or three novels; one was 
a journalist; one was on the eve of a long journey abroad; 
and one, whom we were all glad to honor, was the bril¬ 
liant author of Little Women. She had a womanly face, 
bright, gray eyes, that looked full of merriment, and 
would not see the hard side of life, and an air of common 
sense that made all defer to her judgment. She told witty 
stories of the many who wrote her for advice or favors, 
and good-naturedly gave bits of her own personal experi¬ 
ence. Nearly twenty years before, I had seen her, just 
after her Llospital Sketches were published, over which I, 
and thousands of others, had shed tears. Though but 
thirty years old then, Miss Alcott looked frail and tired. 
That was the day of her struggle with life. Now, at 
fifty, she looked happy and comfortable. The desire of 
her heart had been realized,—to do good to tens of 
thousands, and earn enough money to care for those 
whom she loved. 

Louisa Alcott’s life, like that of so many famous 
women, had been full of obstacles. She was born in 
Germantown, Pa., November 29, 1832, in the home of an 
extremely lovely mother and cultivated father, Amos 
Bronson Alcott. Beginning life poor, his desire for 
knowledge led him to obtain an education and become a 
teacher. In 1830 he married Miss May, a descendant of 
the well-known Sewells and Quincys, of Boston. Louise 
Chandler Moulton says, in her excellent sketch of Miss 

179 


i8o 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


Alcott, “I have heard that the May family were strongly 
opposed to the union of their beautiful daughter with the 
penniless teacher and philosopher”; but he made a de¬ 
voted husband, though poverty was long their guest. 

For eleven years, mostly in Boston, he was the ear¬ 
nest and successful teacher. Margaret Fuller was one of 
his assistants. Everybody respected his purity of life and 
his scholarship. His kindness of heart made him op¬ 
posed to corporal punishment, and in favor of self-govern¬ 
ment. The world had not come then to his high ideal, 
but has been creeping toward it ever since, until whipping, 
both in schools and homes, is fortunately becoming one 
of the lost arts. 

He believed in making studies interesting to pupils; 
not the dull, old-fashioned method of learning by rote, 
whereby, when a hymn was taught, such as, ‘‘A Charge 
to Keep I Have,” the children went home to repeat to their 
astonished mothers, “Eight yards to keep I have,” having 
learned by ear, with no knowledge of the meaning of 
the words. He had friendly talks with his pupils on all 
great subjects; and some of these Miss Elizabeth Peabody, 
the sister of Mrs. Hawthorne, so greatly enjoyed, that she 
took notes, and compiled them in a book. 

New England, always alive to any theological discus¬ 
sion, at once pronounced the book unorthodox. Emer¬ 
son had been through the same kind of a storm, and 
bravely came to the defence of his friend. Another 
charge was laid at Mr. Alcott’s door: he was willing to 
admit colored children to his school, and such a thing was 
not countenanced, except by a few fanatics (so-called) 
like Whittier, and Phillips, and Garrison. The heated 
newspaper discussion lessened the attendance at the school; 
and finally, in 1839, it was discontinued, and the Alcott 
family moved to Concord. 

Here were gifted men and women with whom the phi- 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


181 


losopher could feel at home, and rest. Here lived Emer¬ 
son, in the two-story drab house, with horsechestnut-trees 
in front of it. Here lived Thoreau, near his beautiful 
Walden Lake, a restful place, with no sound save, per¬ 
chance, the dipping of an oar or the note of a bird, which 
the lonely man loved so well. Here he built his house, 
twelve feet square, and lived for two years and a half, 
giving to the world what he desired others to give, 
—his inner self. Here was his bean-field, where he “used 
to hoe from five o’clock in the morning till noon,” and 
made, as he said, an intimate acquaintance with weeds, 
and a pecuniary profit of eight dollars seventy-one and 
one-half cents! Here, too, was Hawthorne, “who,” as 
Oliver Wendell Holmes says, “brooded himself into a 
dream-peopled solitude.” 

Here Mr. Alcott could live with little expense and teach 
his four daughters. Louisa, the eldest, was an active, en¬ 
thusiastic child, getting into little troubles from her frank¬ 
ness and lack of policy, but making friends with her gen¬ 
erous heart. Who can ever forget Jo in Little Women, 
who was really Louisa, the girl who, when reproved for 
whistling by Amy, the art-loving sister, says: “I hate 
affected, niminy-piminy chits! I’m not a young lady; 
and if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in 
two tails till I’m twenty. I hate to think I’ve got to grow 
up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look 
as prim as a china-aster! It’s bad enough to be a girl, 
anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and man¬ 
ners!” 

At fifteen, “Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and re¬ 
minded one of a colt; for she never seemed to know what 
to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her 
way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and 
sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and 
were by turns fierce or funny or thoughtful. Her long, 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


182 

thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled 
into a net to be out of her way. Round shoulders had 
Jo, and big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, 
and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was 
rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn’t like it.” 

The four sisters lived a merry life in the Concord 
haunts, notwithstanding their scanty means. Now, at the 
dear mother’s suggestion, they ate bread and milk for 
breakfast, that they might carry their nicely prepared meal 
to a poor woman, with six children, who called them 
Engel~kinder, much to Louisa’s delight. Now they im¬ 
provised a stage, and produced real plays, while the 
neighbors looked in and enjoyed the fun. 

Louisa was especially fond of reading Shakespeare, 
Goethe, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Miss Edgeworth, and 
George Sand. As early as eight years of age she wrote 
a poem of eight lines, To a Robin, which her mother 
carefully preserved, telling her that “if she kept on in 
this hopeful way, she might be a second Shakespeare in 
time.” Blessings on those people who have a kind smile 
or a word of encouragement as we struggle up the hard 
hills of life! 

At thirteen she wrote My Kingdom. When, years aft¬ 
erward, Mrs. Eva Munson Smith wrote to her, asking 
for some poems for Woman in Sacred Song, Miss Al- 
cott sent her this one, saying, “It is the only hymn I 
ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen, and as I still 
find the same difficulty in governing my kingdom, it still 
expresses my soul’s desire, and I have nothing better to 
offer.” 

“A little kingdom I possess 
Where thoughts and feelings dwell, 

And very hard the task I find 
Of governing it well; 

For passion tempts and troubles me, 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


183 

A wayward will misleads, 

And selfishness its shadow casts 
On all my words and deeds.” 

Louisa was very imaginative, telling stories to her sis¬ 
ters and her mates, and at sixteen wrote a book for Miss 
Ellen Emerson, entitled Flower Fables. It was not pub¬ 
lished till six years later, and then, being florid in style, 
did not bring her any fame. She was now anxious to 
earn her support. She was not the person to sit down 
idly and wait for marriage, or for some rich relation to 
care for her; but she determined to make a place in the 
world for herself. She says in Little Women, “Jo’s am¬ 
bition was to do something very splendid; what it was she 
had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her,” and 
at sixteen the time had come to make the attempt. 

She began to teach school with twenty pupils. In¬ 
stead of the theological talks which her father gave his 
scholars, she told them stories, which she says made the 
one pleasant hour in her school-day. Now the long years 
of work had begun—fifteen of them—which should give 
the girl such rich yet sometimes bitter experiences, that 
she could wVite the most fascinating books from her own 
history. Into her volume called Work, published when 
she had become famous, she put many of her own early 
sorrows in those of “Christie.” 

Much of this time was spent in Boston. Sometimes 
she cared for an invalid child; sometimes she was a gov- 
ness; sometimes she did sewing, adding to her slender 
means by writing late at night. Occasionally she went 
to the house of Rev. Theodore Parker, where she met Em¬ 
erson, Sumner, Garrison, and Julia Ward Howe. Em¬ 
erson always had a kind word for the girl whom he had 
known in Concord, and Mr. Parker would take her by 
the hand and say, “How goes it, my child? God bless 


184 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


you; keep your heart up, Louisa,” and then she would go 
home to her lonely room, brave and encouraged. 

At nineteen, one of her early stories was published 
in Gleason’s Pictorial, and for this she received five dol¬ 
lars. How welcome was this brain-money! Some 
months later she sent a story to the Boston Saturday 
Gazette, entitled The Rival Prima Donnas, and, to her 
great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost 
better still, a request from the editor for another story. 
Miss Alcott made The Rival Prima Donnas into a drama, 
and it was accepted by a theatre, and would have been put 
upon the stage but for some disagreement among the 
actors. However, the young teacher received for her 
work a pass to the theatre for forty nights. She even 
meditated going upon the stage, but the manager quite 
opportunely broke his leg, and the contract was annulled. 
What would the boys and girls of America have lost, had 
their favorite turned actress. 

A second story was, of course, written for the Satur¬ 
day Evening Gazette. And now Louisa was catching a 
glimpse of fame. She says, “One of the memorable mo¬ 
ments of my life is that in which, as I trudged to school 
on a wintry day, my eye fell upon a large poster with 
these delicious words, ' Bertha, a new tale by the author 
of The Rival Prima Donnas, will appear in the Saturday 
Evening Gazette I was late; it was bitter cold; people 
jostled me; I was mortally afraid I should be recog¬ 
nized ; but there I stood, feasting my eyes on the fasci¬ 
nating poster, and saying proudly to myself, in the words 
of the great Vincent Crummies, This, this is fame!’ 
That day my pupils had an indulgent teacher; for, while 
they struggled with their pot-hooks, I was writing immor¬ 
tal works; and when they droned out the multiplication 
table, I was counting up the noble fortune my pen was to 
earn for me in the dim, delightful future. That after- 



LOUISA M. ALCOTT 










LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


185 


noon my sisters made a pilgrimage to behold this famous 
placard, and finding it torn by the wind, boldly stole it, 
and came home to wave it like a triumphal banner in the 
bosom of the excited family. The tattered paper still 
exists, folded away with other relics of those early days, 
so hard and yet so sweet, when the first small victories 
were won, and the enthusiasm of youth lent romance to 
life’s drudgery.” 

Finding that there was money in sensational stories, 
she set herself eagerly to work, and soon could write ten 
or twelve a month. She says in Little Women: “As 
long as The Spread Eagle paid her a dollar a column for 
her 'rubbish,’ as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of 
means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great 
plans fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, 
and the old tin kitchen in the garret held a slowly increas¬ 
ing pile of blotted manuscript, which was one day to 
place the name of March upon the roll of fame.” 

But sensational stories did not bring much fame, and 
the conscientious Louisa tired of them. A novel, Moods, 
written at eighteen, shared nearly the same fate as Flower 
Fables . Some critics praised, some condemned, but the 
great world was indifferent. After this, she offered a 
story to Mr. James T. Fields, at that time editor of the 
1 Atlantic Monthly, but it was declined, with the kindly 
advice that she stick to her teaching. But Louisa Alcott 
had a strong will and a brave heart, and would not be 
overcome by obstacles. 

The Civil War had begun, and the school-teacher’s 
heart was deeply moved. She was now thirty, having 
had such experience as makes us very tender toward 
suffering. The perfume of natures does not usually 
come forth without bruising. She determined to go to 
Washington and offer herself as a nurse at the hospital 
for soldiers. After much official red tape, she found 


i86 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


herself in the midst of scores of maimed and dying, just 
brought from the defeat at Fredericksburg. She says: 
“Round the great stove was gathered the dreariest group 
I ever saw,—ragged, gaunt, and pale, mud to the knees, 
with bloody bandages untouched since put on days be¬ 
fore ; many bundled up in blankets, coats being lost or use¬ 
less, and all wearing that disheartened look which pro¬ 
claimed defeat more plainly than any telegram, of the 
Burnside blunder. I pitied them so much, I dared not 
speak to them. I yearned to serve the dreariest of them 
all. 

“Presently there came an order, ‘Tell them to take off 
socks, coats, and shirts; scrub them well, put on clean 
shirts, and the attendants will finish them off, and lay 
them in bed.’ 

“I chanced to light on a withered old Irishman,” she 
says, “wounded in the head, which caused that portion of 
his frame to be tastefully laid out like a garden, the band¬ 
ages being the walks, and his hair the shrubbery. He 
was so overpowered by the honor of having a lady wash 
him, as he expressed it, that he did nothing but roll up his 
eyes and bless me, in an irresistible style which was too 
much for my sense of the ludicrous, so we laughed to¬ 
gether; and when I knelt down to take off his shoes, he 
wouldn’t hear of my touching ‘them dirty craters.’ 
Some of them took the performance like sleepy children, 
leaning their tired heads against me as I worked; others 
looked grimly scandalized, and several of the roughest 
colored like bashful girls.” 

When food was brought, she fed one of the badly 
wounded men, and offered the same help to his neighbor. 
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, “I don’t think I’ll ever eat 
again, for I’m shot in the stomach. But I’d like a drink 
of water, if you ain’t too busy.” 

“I rushed away,” she says; “but the water pails were 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


187 


gone to be refilled, and it was some time before they re¬ 
appeared. I did not forget my patient, meanwhile, and, 
with the first mugful, hurried back to him. He seemed 
asleep; but something in the tired white face caused me 
to listen at his lips for a breath. None came. I touched 
his forehead; it was cold; and then I knew that, while he 
waited, a better nurse than I had given him a cooler 
draught, and healed him with a touch. I laid the sheet 
over the quiet sleeper, whom no noise could now disturb; 
and, half an hour later, the bed was empty/’ 

With cheerful face and warm heart she went among 
the soldiers, now writing letters, now washing faces, and 
now singing lullabies. One day a tall, manly fellow was 
brought in. He seldom spoke, and uttered no complaint. 
After a little, when his wounds were being dressed, Miss 
Alcott observed the big tears roll down his cheeks and 
drop on the floor. 

She says: “My heart opened wide and took him in, 
as, gathering the bent head in my arms, as freely as if he 
had been a child, I said, ‘Let me help you bear it, John!’ 
/Never on any human countenance have I ever seen so 
swift and beautiful a look of gratitude, surprise, and 
comfort as that which answered me more eloquently than 
the whispered— 

“ ‘Thank you ma’am; this is right good! this is what I 
wanted.’ 

“ ‘Then why not ask for it before?’ 

“ ‘I didn’t like to be a trouble, you seemed so busy, and 
I could manage to get on alone.’ ” 

Two days later Miss Alcott was sent for. John 
stretched out both hands as he said, “I knew you’d come. 
I guess I’m moving on, ma’am.” Then clasping her hand 
so close that the death marks remained long upon it, he 
slept the final sleep. An hour later John’s letter came, 
and putting it in his hand, Miss Alcott kissed the dead 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


brow of the Virginia blacksmith, for his aged mother’s 
sake, and buried him in the government lot. 

The noble teacher after a while became ill from over¬ 
work, and was obliged to return home, soon writing her 
book, Hospital Sketches , published in 1865. This year, 
needing rest and change, she went to Europe as com¬ 
panion to an invalid lady, spending a year in Germany, 
Switzerland, Paris, and London. In the latter city she 
met Jean Ingelow, Frances Power Cobbe, John Stuart 
Mill, George Lewes, and others, who had known of the 
brilliant Concord coterie. Such persons did not ask if 
Miss Alcott were rich, nor did they care. 

In 1868 her father took several of her more recent 
stories to Roberts Brothers to see about their publication 
in book form. Mr. Thomas Niles, a member of the firm, 
a man of refinement and good judgment, said: “We do 
not care just now for volumes of collected stories. Will 
not your daughter write us a new book consisting of a 
single story for girls?” 

Miss Alcott feared she could not do it, and set herself 
to write Little Women, to show the publishers that she 
could not write a story for girls. But she did not succeed 
in convincing them or the world of her inability. 
In two months the first part was finished, and published 
October, 1868. It was a natural, graphic story of her 
three sisters and herself in that Concord home. How 
we, who are grown-up children, read with interest about 
the “Lawrence boy,” especially if we had boys of our own, 
and sympathized with the little girl who wrote Miss 
Alcott, “I have cried quarts over Beth’s sickness. If you 
don’t have her marry Laurie in the second part, I shall 
never forgive you, and none of the girls in our school 
will ever read any more of your books. Do! do! have 
her, please.” 

The second part appeared in April, 1869, and Miss 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


189 


Alcott found herself famous. The “pile of blotted 
manuscript” had “placed the name of March upon the 
roll of fame.” Some of us could not be reconciled to 
dear Jo’s marriage with the German professor, and 
their school at Plumfield, when Laurie loved her so 
tenderly. We cried over Beth, and felt how strangely 
like most young housekeepers was Meg. How the tired 
teacher, and tender-hearted nurse for the soldiers must 
have rejoiced at her success! “This year,” she wrote her 
publishers, “after toiling so many years along the uphill 
road, always a hard one to women writers, it is peculiarly 
grateful to me to find the way growing easier at last, with 
pleasant little surprises blossoming on either side, and the 
rough places made smooth.” 

When Little Men was announced, fifty thousand copies 
were ordered in advance of its publication! About this 
time Miss Alcott visited Rome with her artist sister May, 
the “Amy” of Little Women, and on her return, wrote 
Shawl-straps, a bright sketch of their journey, followed 
by an Old-Fashioned Girl; that charming book Under the 
Lilacs, where your heart goes out to Ben and his dog 
Sancho; six volumes of Aunt Jo’s Scrap-bag; Jack and 
Jill; and others. From these books Miss Alcott received 
over one hundred thousand dollars. 

She was ever the most devoted of daughters. Till the 
mother went out of life, in 1877, she provided for her 
every want. May, the gifted youngest sister, who was 
married in Paris in 1878 to Ernest Nieriker, died a year 
and a half later, leaving her infant daughter, Louisa May 
Nieriker, to Miss Alcott’s loving care. The father, who 
became paralyzed in 1882, had her constant ministries. 
How proud he was of his Louisa! I heard him say, 
years ago, “I am riding in her golden chariot.” 

Miss Alcott, like Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, was an 
earnest advocate of women’s suffrage, and temperance. 


LOUISA M. ALCOTT 


190 

When Meg in Little Women prevails upon Laurie to 
take the pledge on her wedding-day, the delighted Jo 
beams her approval. In 1883 she wrote of the suffrage 
reform, “Every year gives me greater faith in it, greater 
hope of its success, a larger charity for those who cannot 
see its wisdom, and a more earnest wish to use what in¬ 
fluence I possess for its advancement.” 

Miss Alcott died March 6, 1888, at the age of fifty-five, 
three days after the death of her distinguished father, 
Bronson Alcott. She had been ill for some months, 
from care and overwork. On the Saturday morning be¬ 
fore she died, she wrote to a friend: “I am told that I 
must spend another year in this ‘Saint’s Rest/ and then 
I am promised twenty years of health. I don’t want so 
many, and I have no idea I shall see them. But as I don’t 
live for myself, I will live on for others.” 


MARY LYON 


There are two women whose memory the girls in 
this country should especially revere,—Mary Lyon and 
Catharine Beecher. When it was unfashionable for 
women to know more than to read, write, and cipher 
(the “three R’s,” as reading, writing, and arithmetic 
were called), these two had the courage to as'k that women 
have an education equal to men, a thing which was 
laughed at as impracticable and impossible. To these 
two pioneers we are greatly indebted for the grand 
educational advantages for women to-day in America. 

Amid the mountains of Western Massachusetts, at 
Buckland, February 28, 1797, the fifth of seven children, 
Mary Lyon came into the world, in obscurity. The little 
farm-house was but one story high, in the midst of rocks 
and sturdy trees. The father, Aaron Lyon, was a godly 
man, beloved by all his neighbors,—“the peacemaker,” 
he was called,—who died at forty-five, leaving his little 
family well-nigh helpless—no, not helpless, because the 
mother was of the sailie material of which Eliza Garfields 
are made. 

Such women are above circumstances. She saw to it 
that the farm yielded its best. She worked early and late, 
always cheerful, always observing the Sabbath most de¬ 
votedly, always keeping the children clean and tidy. In 
her little garden the May pinks were the sweetest and the 
peonies the reddest of any in the neighborhood. One 
person begged to set a plant in the corner of her garden, 
sure that if Mrs. Lyon tended it, it could never die. 
“How is it,” said the hard-working wife of a farmer, 
“that the widow can do more for me than any one else?” 

191 


192 


MARY LYON 


She had her trials, but she saw no use in telling them to 
others, so with a brave heart she took up her daily tasks 
and performed them. 

Little Mary was an energetic, frank, warm-hearted 
child, full of desire to help others. Her mind was eager 
in grasping new things, and curious in its investigations. 
Once, when her mother had given her some work to do, 
she studied the hour-glass, and turning it upside down at 
the end of the hour, she said, “I know I have found a way 
to make more time.” 

At the village school she showed a remarkable memory 
and the power of committing lessons easily. She was 
especially good in mathematics and grammar. In four 
days she learned all of Alexander’s Grammar, which 
scholars were accustomed to commit, and recited it 
accuratelv to the astonished teacher. 

When Mary was thirteen, the mother married a second 
time, and soon after removed to Ohio. The girl re¬ 
mained at the old homestead, keeping house for the only 
brother, and so well did she do the work, that he gave her 
a dollar a week for her services. This she used in buying 
books and clothes for school. Besides, she found oppor¬ 
tunities to spin and weave for some of the neighbors, and 
thus added a little more to her purse. 

After five years, the brother married and sought a 
home in New York State. Mary, thus thrown upon her¬ 
self, began to teach school for seventy-five cents a week 
and her board. This amount would not buy many silks 
or embroideries, but Mary did not care much for these. 
“She is all intellect,’ said a friend who knew her well; 
“she does not know that she has a body to care for.’’ 

She had now saved enough money to enable her to 
spend one term at the Sanderson Academy at Ashfield. 
What an important event in life that seemed to the strug¬ 
gling country girl! The scholars watched her bright, 


MARY LYON 


193 


intellectual face, and when she began to recite, laid aside 
their books to hear her. The teacher said, “I should like 
to see what she would make if she could be sent to col¬ 
lege.” When the term ended, her little savings were all 
spent, and now she must teach again. If she could only 
go forward with her classmates! but the laws of poverty 
are inexorable. Just as she was leaving the school, the 
trustees came and offered the advantages of the academy 
free, for another term. Did ever such a gleam of sun¬ 
shine come into a cloudy day? 

But how could she pay her board? She owned a bed 
and some table linen, and taking these to a boarding 
house, a bargain was made whereby she could have a 
room and board in exchange for her household articles. 

Her red-letter days had indeed come. She might never 
have a chance for schooling again; so, without regard to 
health, she slept only four hours out of the twenty-four, 
ate her meals hurriedly, and gave all her time to her 
lessons. Not a scholar in the school could keep up with 
her. When the teacher gave her Adam’s Latin Gram¬ 
mary telling her to commit such portions as were usual 
in going over the book the first time, she learned them all 
in three days! 

When the term closed, she had no difficulty in finding 
a place to teach. All the towns around had heard of the 
surprising scholar, Mary Lyon, and probably hoped she 
could inspire the same scholarship in her pupils, a matter 
in which she was most successful. 

As soon as her schools were finished, she would spend 
the money in obtaining instruction in some particular 
study, in which she thought herself deficient. Now she 
would go into the family of Rev. Edward Hitchcock, 
afterward president of Amherst College, and study 
natural science of him, meantime taking lessons of his 
wife in drawing and painting. Now she would study 


194 


MARY LYON 


penmanship, following the copy as closely as a child. 
Once when a teacher, in deference to her reputation, wrote 
the copy in Latin, she handed it back and asked him to 
write it in English, lest when the books were examined, 
she might be thought wiser than she really was. Thus 
conscientious was the young school-teacher. 

She was now twenty-four, and had laid up enough 
money to attend the school of Rev. Joseph Emerson, at 
Byfield. He was an unusual man in his gifts of teaching 
and broad views of life. He had been blest with a wife 
of splendid talents, and as Miss Lyon was wont to say, 
“Men judge of the whole sex by their own wives,” so Mr. 
Emerson believed women could understand metaphysics 
and theology as well as men. He discussed science and 
religion with his pupils, and the result was a class of self- 
respecting, self-reliant, thinking women. 

Miss Lyon’s friends discouraged her going to Byfield, 
because they thought she knew enough already. “Why,” 
said they, “you will never be a minister, and what is the 
need of going to school ?” She improved her time here. 
One of her classmates wrote home, “Mary sends love to 
all; but time with her is too precious to spend in writing 
letters. She is gaining knowledge by handfuls.” 

The next year, an assistant was wanted in the Sander¬ 
son Academy. The principal thought a man must be 
engaged. “Try Mary Lyon,” said one of her friends, 
“and see if she is not sufficient,” and he employed her, 
and found her a host. But she could not long be re¬ 
tained, for she was wanted in a larger field, at Derry, 
N. H. Miss Grant, one of the teachers at Mr. Emerson’s 
school, had sent for her former bright pupil. Mary was 
glad to be associated with Miss Grant, for she was very 
fond of her; but before going, she must attend some 
lectures in chemistry and natural history by Professor 


MARY LYON 


195 


Eaton at Amherst. Had she been a young man, how 
easily could she have secured a scholarship, and thus 
worked her way through college; but for a young woman, 
neither Amherst, nor Dartmouth, nor Williams, nor 
Harvard, nor Yale, with all their wealth, had an open 
door. Very fond of chemistry, she could only learn in 
the spare time which a busy professor could give. 

Was the cheerful girl never despondent in these hard 
working years? Yes; because naturally she was easily 
discouraged, and would have long fits of weeping; but 
she came to the conclusion that such seasons of depres¬ 
sion were wrong, and that “there was too much to be 
done, for her to spend her time in that manner.” She 
used to tell her pupils that “if they were unhappy, it was 
probably because they had so many thoughts about them¬ 
selves, and so few about the happiness of others.” The 
friend who had recommended her for the Sanderson 
Academy now became surety for her for forty dollars’ 
worth of clothing, and the earnest young woman started 
for Derry. The school there numbered ninety pupils, 
and Mary Lyons was happy. She wrote her mother, 
“I do not number it among the least of my blessings 
that I am permitted to do something. Surely I ought 
to be thankful for an active life.” 

But the Derry school was held only in the summers, 
so Miss Lyon came back to teach at Ashfield and Buck- 
land, her birthplace, for the winters. The first season 
she had twenty-five scholars; the last, one hundred. The 
families in the neighborhood took the students into their 
homes to board, charging them one dollar or one dollar 
and twenty-five cents per week, while the tuition was 
twenty-five cents a week. No one would grow very 
rich on such an income. So popular was Miss Lyon’s 
teaching that a suitable building was erected for her 


MARY LYON 


196 

school, and the Ministerial Association passed a resolution 
of praise, urging her to remain permanently in the 
western part of Massachusetts. 

However, Miss Grant had removed to Ipswich, and 
had urged Miss Lyon to join her, which she did. For 
six years they taught a large and most successful school. 
Miss Lyon was singularly happy in her intercourse with 
the young ladies. She won them to her views, while 
they scarcely knew that they were being controlled. She 
would say to them: “Now, young ladies, you are here 
at great expense. Your board and tuition cost a great 
deal, and your time ought to be worth more than both; 
but, in order to get an equivalent for the money and 
time you are spending, you must be systematic, and 
that is impossible, unless you have a regular hour for 
rising. . . . Persons who run round all day after the 
half-hour they lost in the morning never accomplish 
much. You may know them by a rip in the glove, a 
string pinned to the bonnet, a shawl left on the balus¬ 
trade, which they had no time to hang up, they were in 
such a hurry to catch their lost thirty minutes. You 
will see them opening their books and trying to study 
at the time of general exercises in school; but it is a 
fruitless race; they never will overtake their lost half- 
hour. Good men, from Abraham to Washington, have 
been early risers.” Again, she would say, “Mind, where- 
ever it is found, will secure respect. . . . Educate the 
women, and the men will be educated. Let the ladies 
understand the great doctrine of seeking the greatest 
good, of loving their neighbors as themselves; let them 
indoctrinate their children in this fundamental truth, and 
we shall have wise legislators.” 

“You won’t do so again, will you, dear?” was almost 
always sure to win a tender response from a pupil. 

She would never allow a scholar to be laughed at. 


MARY LYON 


197 


If a teacher spoke jestingly of a scholar’s capacity, Miss 
Lyon would say, “Yes, I know she has a small mind, but 
we must do the best we can for her.” 

For nearly sixteen years she had been giving her life 
to the education of girls. She had saved no money for 
herself, giving it to her relatives or aiding poor girls in 
going to school. She was simple in her tastes, the blue 
cloth dress she generally wore having been spun and 
woven by herself. A friend tells how, standing before 
the mirror to tie her bonnet, she said, “Well, I may fail 
of Heaven, but I shall be very much disappointed if I do 
—very much disappointed”; and there was no thought 
of what she was doing with the ribbons. 

Miss Lyon was now thirty-three years old. It would 
be strange indeed if a woman with her bright mind and 
sunshiny face should not have offers of marriage. One 
of her best opportunities came, as is often the case, when 
about thirty, and Miss Lyon could have been made su¬ 
premely happy by it, but she had in her mind one great 
purpose, and she felt that she must sacrifice home and 
love for it. This was the building of a high-grade school 
or college for women. Had she decided otherwise, there 
probably would have been no Mount Holyoke College. 

She had the tenderest sympathy for poor girls; they 
were the ones usually most desirous of an education, and 
they struggled the hardest for it. For them no educa¬ 
tional societies were provided, and no scholarships. 

Could she, who had no money, build “a seminary which 
should be so moderate in its expenses as to be open to the 
daughters of farmers and artisans, and to teachers who 
might be mainly dependent for their support on their 
own exertions?” 

In vain she tried to have the school at Ipswich estab¬ 
lished permanently by buildings and endowments. In 
vain she talked with college presidents and learned min- 


198 


MARY LYON 


isters. Nearly all were indifferent. They could see no 
need that women should study science or the classics. 
That women would be happier with knowledge, just as 
they themselves were made happier by it, seemed never 
to have occurred to them. That women were soon to do 
nine-tenths of the teaching in the schools of the country 
could not be foreseen. Oberlin and Cornell, Vassar and 
Wellesley, belonged to a golden age as yet undreamed 
of. 

For two years she thought over it, and prayed over 
it, and when all seemed hopeless, she would walk the 
floor, and say over and over again, “Commit thy way 
unto the Lord. He will keep thee. Women must be 
educated; they must be.” Finally a meeting was called 
in Boston at the same time as one of the religious anni¬ 
versaries. She wrote to a friend, “Very few were 
present. The meeting was adjourned; and the ad¬ 
journed meeting utterly failed. There were not enough 
present to organize, and there the business, in my view, 
has come to an end.” 

Still she carried the burden on her heart. She writes, 
in 1834, “During the past year my heart has so yearned 
over the adult female youth in the common walks of 
life, that it has sometimes seemed as though a fire were 
shut up in my bones.” She conceived the idea of having 
the young women do the work of the house, partly to 
lessen expenses, partly to teach them useful things, and 
also because she says, “Might not this single feature do 
away with much of the prejudice against female educa¬ 
tion among common people?” 

At last the purpose in her heart became so strong that 
she resigned her position as a teacher, and went from 
house to house in Ipswich collecting funds. She wrote 
to her mother, “I hope and trust that this is of the Lord, 
and that He will prosper it. In this movement I have 


MARY LYON 


199 


thought much more constantly, and have felt much more 
deeply, about doing that which shall be for the honor 
of Christ, and for the good of souls, than I ever did in 
any step in my life.” She determined to raise her first 
thousand dollars from women. She talked in her good- 
natured way with the father or the mother. She asked 
if they wanted a new shawl or card-table or carpet, if 
they would not find a way to procure it. Usually they 
gave five or ten dollars; some, only a half-dollar. So 
interested did two ladies become that they gave one 
hundred dollars apiece, and later, when their house was 
burned, and the man who had their money in charge lost 
it, they worked, with their own hands and earned the 
two hundred, that their portion might not fail in the great 
work. 

In less than two months she had raised the thousand: 
but she wrote Miss Grant, “I do not recollect being so 
fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few 
weeks past.” She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman 
Beecher’s, “The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a 
great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do.” 
When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep 
nearly all the time, for two or three days, till nature re¬ 
paired the system. 

She next went to Amherst, where good Dr. Hitchcock 
felt as deeply interested for girls as for the boys in his 
college. One January morning, with the thermometer 
below zero, three or four hours before sunrise, he and 
Miss Lyon started on the stage for Worcester. Each 
was wrapped in a buffalo robe, so that the long ride was 
not unpleasant. A meeting was to be held, and a decision 
made as to the location of the seminary, which, at last, 
was actually to be built. After a long conference, South 
Hadley was chosen, ten miles south of Amherst. 

One by one, good men became interested in the matter, 


200 


MARY LYON 


and one true-hearted minister became an agent for the 
raising of funds. Miss Lyon was also untiring in her 
solicitations. She spoke before ladies’ meetings, and 
visited those in high station and low. So troubled were 
her friends about this public work for a woman, that they 
reasoned with her that it was in better taste to stay at 
home, and let gentlemen do the work. 

“What do I do that’s wrong?” she replied. “I ride in 
the stage coach or cars without an escort. Other ladies 
do the same. I visit a family where I have been pre¬ 
viously invited, and the minister’s wife, or some leading 
woman, calls the ladies together to see me, and I lay our 
object before them. Is that wrong? I go with Mr. 
Hawks (the agent), and call on a gentleman of known 
liberality, at his own house, and converse with him about 
our enterprise. What harm is there in that? My heart 
is sick, my soul is pained, with this empty gentility, this 
genteel nothingness. I am doing a great work. I can¬ 
not come down.” Pitiful, that so noble a woman should 
have been hampered by public opinion. How all this 
has changed! Now, the world and the church gladly 
welcome the voice, the hand, and the heart of woman in 
their philanthropic work. 

At last, enough money was raised to begin the enter¬ 
prise, and the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Seminary 
was laid, October 3, 1836. “It was a day of deep inter¬ 
est,” writes Mary Lyon. “The stones and brick and mor¬ 
tar speak a language which vibrates through my very 
soul.” 

With thankful heart and busy hands she watched the 
progress of the work. Every detail was under her care¬ 
ful eye. She said: “Had I a thousand lives, I could 
sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship, for the sake 
of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Did I possess the great- 


MARY LYON 


201 


est fortune, I could readily relinquish it all, and become 
poor, and more than poor, if its prosperity should de¬ 
mand it.” 

Finally, in the autumn of 1837, the seminary was 
ready for pupils. The main building, four stories high, 
had been erected. An admirable course of study had 
been provided. For the forty weeks of the school year, 
the charges for board and tuition were sixty dollars,— 
only one dollar and twenty-five cents per week. Miss 
Lyon’s own salary was but two hundred a year and she 
never would receive anything higher. The accommoda¬ 
tions were for only eighty pupils, but one hundred and 
sixteen came the first year. 

While Miss Lyon was heartily loved by her scholars, 
they yet respected her good discipline. It was against 
the rules for any one to absent herself from meals without 
permission to do so. One of the young ladies, not 
feeling quite as fresh as usual, concluded not to go down 
stairs at tea time, and to remain silent on the subject. 
Miss Lyon’s quick eye detected her absence. Calling 
the girl's room-mate to her, she asked, “Is Miss-ill?” 

“Oh, no,” was the reply, “only a little indisposed, and 
she commissioned me to carry her a cup of tea and a 
cracker.” 

“Very well, I will see to it.” 

After supper, the young lady ascended to her room, 
in the fourth story, found her companion enjoying a 
glorious sunset, and seating herself beside her, they 
began an animated conversation. Presently there was 
a knock. “Come in!” both shouted gleefully, when lo! 
in walked Mary Lyon, with the tea and cracker. She 
had come up four flights of stairs; but she said every one 
was tired at night, and she could as well bring up the 
supper as anybody. She inquired with great kindness 



202 


MARY LYON 


about the young lady’s health, who, greatly abashed, had 
nothing to say. She was ever after present at meal time, 
unless sick in bed. 

The students never forgot Miss Lyon’s plain, earnest 
words. When they entered, they were told that they were 
expected to do right without formal commands; if not, 
they had better go to some smaller school, where they 
could receive the peculiar training needed by little girls. 
She urged loose clothing and thick shoes. “If you will per¬ 
sist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure,” she would 
say, “we are not willing to take the responsibility of 
the act. We think, by all means, you had better go home 
and die, in the arms of your dear mothers.” 

Miss Lyon had come to her fiftieth birthday. Her 
seminary had prospered beyond her fondest hopes. She 
had raised nearly seventy thousand dollars for her be¬ 
loved school, and it was out of debt. Nearly two thou¬ 
sand pupils had been at South Hadley, of whom a large 
number had become missionaries and teachers. Not a 
single year had passed without a revival, and rarely did 
a girl leave the institution without professing Christian¬ 
ity- 

She said to a friend shortly after this fiftieth birthday: 
“It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it 
to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took 
leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should 
have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, 
and far other thoughts would fill my mind, and other em¬ 
ployments would engage my attention. I felt it. There 
seemed to be no ladder between me and the world above. 
The gates were opened, and I seemed to stand on the 
threshold. I felt that the evening of my days had come, 
and that I needed repose.” 

And the repose came soon. The last of February, 
1849, a young lady in the seminary died. Miss Lyon 


MARY LYON 


203 


called the girls together and spoke tenderly to them, 
urging them not to fear death, but to be ready to meet 
it. She said, “There is nothing in the universe that 
I am afraid of, but that I shall not know and do all my 
duty.” Beautiful words! carved shortly after on her 
monument. 

A few days later, Mary Lyon lay upon her death¬ 
bed. The brain had been congested, and she was often 
unconscious. In one of her lucid moments, her pastor 
said, “Christ precious?” Summoning all her energies, 
she raised both hands, clasped them, and said, “Yes/’ 
“Have you trusted Christ too much?” he asked. Seeing 
that she made an effort to speak, he said, “God can be 
glorified by silence.” An indescribable smile lit up her 
face, and she was gone. 

The English ivy grows thickly over Miss Lyon’s grave, 
covering it like a mantle, and sending out its wealth of 
green leaves in the spring. So each year her own handi¬ 
work flourishes, sending out into the world its strongest 
forces, the very foundation of the highest civilization, 
—educated and Christian wives and mothers. 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


Some years ago, in an art store in Boston, a crowd 
of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of 
statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the 
white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls 
stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One 
of them said, “Just to think that a woman did it!” 

“It makes me proud and glad,” said another. 

“Who is Harriet Hosmer?” said a third. “I wish I 
knew about her.” 

And then one of us, who had stolen all the hours she 
could get from school life to read art books from the 
Hartford Athenaeum, and kept crude statues, made by 
herself from chalk and plaster, secreted in her room, 
told all she had read about the brilliant creator of “Zen- 
obia.” 

The statue was seven feet high, queenly in pose and 
face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which 
genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the 
elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, 
both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. 
Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces 
in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have 
ever made a stronger impression upon me than “Zenobia,” 
in those early years. 

And who was the artist of whom we girls were so 
proud? Born in Watertown, Mass., October 9, 1830, 
Harriet Hosmer came into the welcome home of a leading 
physician, and a delicate mother, who soon died of con¬ 
sumption. Dr. Hosmer had also buried his only child 

beside Harriet, with the same disease, and he deter- 

204 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


205 


mined that this girl should live in sunshine and air, that 
he might save her if possible. He used to say, “There 
is a whole life-time for the education of the mind, but 
the body develops in a few years; and during that time 
nothing should be allowed to interfere with its free and 
healthy growth.” 

As soon as the child was large enough, she was given 
a pet dog, which she decked with ribbons and bells. Then 
as the Charles River flowed past their house, a boat was 
provided, and she was allowed to row at will. A Vene¬ 
tian gondola was also built for her, with silver prow and 
velvet cushions. “Too much spoiling—too much spoil¬ 
ing,” said some of the neighbors; but Dr. Hosmer knew 
that he was keeping his little daughter on the earth instead 
of in heaven. 

A gun was now purchased, and the girl became an ad¬ 
mirable marksman. Her room was a perfect museum. 
Here were birds, bats, beetles, snakes, and toads; some 
dissected, some preserved in spirits, and others stuffed, all 
gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she 
made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the 
body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a 
tree and brought down a crow’s nest. She could walk 
miles upon miles without fatigue. She grew up like a 
boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up 
healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society 
was shocked at Dr. Hosmer’s methods. Would that there 
were many such fathers and mothers, that we might have 
a vigorous race of women, and consequently, a vigorous 
race of men! 

When Harriet tired of books,—for she was an eager 
reader,—she found delight in a clay-pit in the garden, 
where she molded horses and dogs to her heart’s content. 
Unused to restraint, she did not like the first school in 
which she was placed, the principal, the brother-in-law 


206 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


of Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to her father that he 
“could do nothing with her.” 

She was then taken to Mrs. Sedgewick, who kept a 
famous school at Lenox, Berkshire County. She re¬ 
ceived “Happy Hatty,” as she was called, with the re¬ 
mark, “I have a reputation for training wild colts, and 
I will try this one.” And the wise woman succeeded. 
She won Harriet’s confidence, not by the ten thousand 
times repeated “don’t,” which so many children hear in 
home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her 
run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that 
the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed 
tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined 
for lack of it! 

She remained here three years. Mrs. Sedgewick says, 
“She was the most difficult pupil to manage I ever had 
but I think I never had one in whom I took so deep an 
interest, and whom I learned to love so well.” About 
this time, not being quite as well as usual, Dr. Hosmer 
engaged a physician of large practice to visit his daughter. 
The busy man could not be regular, which sadly inter¬ 
fered with Harriet’s boating and driving. Complaining 
one day that it spoiled her pleasure, he said, “If I am 
alive, I will be here,” naming the day and hour. 

“Then if you are not here, I am to conclude that you 
are dead,” was the reply. 

As he did not come, Harriet drove to the newspaper 
offices in Boston that afternoon, and the next morning 

the community was startled to read of Dr.-’s sudden 

death. Friends hastened to the house, and messages of 
condolence came pouring in. It is probable that he was 
more punctual after this. 

On Harriet’s return from Lenox, she began to take 
lessons in drawing, modeling, and anatomical studies, 
in Boston, frequently walking from home and back, a 



HARRIET G. HOSMER 


207 


distance of fourteen miles. Feeling the need of a thor¬ 
ough course in anatomy, she applied to the Boston Medi¬ 
cal School for admittance, and was refused because of her 
sex. The Medical College of St. Louis proved itself 
broader, glad to encourage talent wherever found, and 
received her. 

Professor McDowell, under whom the artists Powers 
and Clevenger studied anatomy, spared no pains to give 
her every advantage, while the students were uniformly 
courteous. “I remember him,” says Miss Hosmer, ‘‘with 
great affection and gratitude as being a most thorough 
and patient teacher, as well as at all times a good, kind 
friend.” In testimony of her appreciation, she cut, from 
a bust of Professor McDowell by Clevenger, a life-size 
medallion in marble, now treasured in the college museum. 

While in St. Louis she made her home with the family 
of Wayman Crow, whose daughter had been her com¬ 
panion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a 
constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first 
statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl 
who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life. 

After completing her studies she made a trip to New 
Orleans, and then North to the Falls of St. Anthony, 
smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota 
Indians, exploring lead mines in Dubuque, and scaling a 
high mountain that was soon after named for her. Did 
the wealthy girl go alone on these journeys? Yes. As 
a rule, no harm comes to a young woman who conducts 
herself with becoming reserve with men. Flirts usually 
are paid in their own coin. 

On her return home, Dr. Hosmer fitted up a studio for 
his daughter, and her first work was to copy from the 
antique. Then she cut Canova’s “Napoleon” in marble 
for her father, doing all the work, that he might especially 
value the gift. Her next statue was an ideal bust of 


208 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


Hesper, “with,” said Lydia Maria Child, “the face of a 
lovely maiden gently falling asleep with the sound of 
distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and 
intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines 
on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent 
moon. The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, 
young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful 
mouth so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. 
She did every stroke of the work with her own small 
hands, except knocking off the corners of the block of 
marble. She employed a man to do that; but as he was 
unused to work for sculptors, she did not venture to have 
him approach within several inches of the surface she 
intended to cut. Slight girl as she was, she wielded for 
eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four 
pounds and a half. Had it not been for the strength and 
flexibility of muscle acquired by rowing and other 
athletic exercises, such arduous labor would have been 
impossible.” 

After “Hesper” was completed, she said to her father, 
“I am ready to go to Rome.” 

“You shall go, my child, this very autumn,” was the 
response. 

He would, of course, miss the genial companionship 
of his only child, but her welfare was to be consulted 
rather than his own. When autumn came, she rode on 
horseback to Wayland to say good-bye to Mrs. Child. 
“Shall you never be homesick for your museum-parlor in 
Watertown? Can you be contented in a foreign land?” 

“I can be happy anywhere,” said Miss Hosmer, “with 
good health and a bit of marble.” 

Late in the fall Dr. Hosmer and his daughter started 
for Europe, reaching Rome, November 12, 1852. She 
had greatly desired to study under John Gibson, the lead¬ 
ing English sculptor, but he had taken young women into 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


209 


his studio who in a short time became discouraged or 
showed themselves afraid of hard work, and he feared 
Miss Hosmer might be of the same useless type. 

When the photographs of “Hesper” were placed before 
him by an artist friend of the Hosmers, he looked at 
them carefully, and said, “Send the young lady to me, and 
whatever I know, and can teach her, she shall learn.” He 
gave Miss Hosmer an upstairs room in his studio, and 
here for seven years she worked with delight, honored 
and encouraged by her noble teacher. She wrote to her 
friends: “The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in 
that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has 
been resident in Rome thirty-four years, and leads the 
van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished the 
model of the statue of the queen; and as his room is 
vacant, he permits me to use it, and I am now in his own 
studio. I have also a little room for work which was 
formerly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspiration 
may be drawn from the walls.” 

The first work which she copied, to show Gibson 
whether she had correctness of eye and proper knowledge, 
was the Venus of Milo. When nearly finished, the iron 
which supported the clay snapped, and the figure lay 
spoiled upon the floor. She did not shrink nor cry, but 
immediately went to work cheerfully to shape it over 
again. This conduct Mr. Gibson greatly admired, and 
made up his mind to assist her all he could. 

After this she copied the “Cupid” of Praxiteles and 
Tasso from the British Museum. Her first original work 
was “Daphne,” the beautiful girl whom Apollo loved, 
and who, rather than accept his addresses, was changed 
into laurel by the gods. Apollo crowned his head 
with laurel, and made the flower sacred to himself 
forever. 

Next, Miss Hosmer produced “Medusa,” famed for 


210 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


her beautiful hair, which Minerva turned into serpents 
because Neptune loved her. According to Grecian 
mythology, Perseus made himself immortal by conquer¬ 
ing Medusa, whose head he cut off, and the blood dripping 
from it filled Africa with snakes. Miss Hosmer repre¬ 
sented the beautiful maiden, when she finds, with horror, 
that her hair is turning into serpents. 

Needing a real snake for her work, Miss Hosmer sent 
a man into the suburbs to bring her one alive. When it 
was obtained, she chloroformed it till she had made a cast, 
keeping it in plaster for three hours and a half. Then, 
instead of killing it, she sent it back into the country, 
glad to regain its liberty. 

“Daphne” and “Medusa” were both exhibited in Boston 
the following year, 1853, and were much praised. Mr. 
Gibson said: “The power of imitating the roundness and 
softness of flesh, he had never seen surpassed.” Rauch, 
the great Prussian, whose mausoleum at Charlottenburg 
of the beautiful queen Louise can never be forgotten, gave 
Miss Hosmer high praise. 

Two years later she completed her “CEnone,” the 
beautiful nymph of Mount Ida. This work was so much 
liked in America, that the St. Louis Mercantile Library 
made a liberal offer for some other statue. Accordingly, 
two years after, “Beatrice Cenci” was sent. The noble 
girl lies asleep, the night before her execution, after the 
terrible torture. “It was,” says Mrs. Child, “the sleep 
of a body worn out with the wretchedness of the soul. 
On that innocent face suffering had left its traces. The 
arm that had been tossing in the grief tempest, had fallen 
heavily, too weary to change itself into a more easy posi¬ 
tion. Those large eyes, now so closely veiled by their 
swollen lids, had evidently wept till the fountain of tears 
was dry. That lovely mouth was still the open portal 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


211 


of a sigh, which the mastery of sleep had left no time 
to close.” 

To make this natural, the sculptor caused several mod¬ 
els to go to sleep in her studio, that she might study 
them. Gibson is said to have remarked upon seeing this, 
“I can teach her nothing.” This was also exhibited in 
London and in several American cities. 

For three years she had worked continuously, not leav¬ 
ing Rome even in the hot, unhealthy summers. She had 
said, “I will not be an amateur; I will work as if I had 
to earn my daily bread.” However, as her health seemed 
somewhat impaired, at her father’s earnest wish, she had 
decided to go to England for the season. Her trunks 
were packed, and she was ready to start, when lo! a mes¬ 
sage came that Dr. Hosmer had lost his property, that 
he could send her no more money, and suggested that she 
return home at once. 

At first she seemed overwhelmed; then she said firmly, 
“I cannot go back, and give up my art.” Her trunks 
were at once unpacked and a cheap room rented. Her 
handsome horse and saddle were sold, and she was now 
to work indeed “as if she earned her daily bread.” 

By a strange freak of human nature, by which we 
sometimes do our most humorous work when we are sad¬ 
dest, Miss Hosmer produced now in her sorrow her fun- 
loving “Puck.” It represents a child about four years 
old seated on a toadstool which breaks beneath him. The 
left hand confines a lizard, while the right holds a beetle. 
The legs are crossed, and the great toe of the right foot 
turns up. The whole is full of merriment. The Crown 
Princess of Germany, on seeing it, exclaimed, “Oh Miss 
Hosmer, you have such a talent for toes!” Very true, 
for this statue, with the several copies made from it, 
brought her thirty thousand dollars! The Prince of 
Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and 


212 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies. A 
companion piece is the “Will-o’-the-wisp.” 

About this time the lovely sixteen-year-old daughter 
of Madam Falconnet died at Rome, and for her monu¬ 
ment in the Catholic church of San Andrea del Fratte, 
Miss Hosmer produced an exquisite figure resting upon a 
sarcophagus. Layard, the explorer of Babylon and Nin¬ 
eveh, wrote to Madam Falconnet: “I scarcely remember 
to have seen a monument which more completely com¬ 
manded my sympathy and more deeply interested me. 
I really know of none, of modern days, which I would 
rather have placed over the remains of one who had been 
dear to me.” 

Miss Hosmer returned to America in 1857, five years 
after her departure. She was still young, twenty-seven, 
vivacious, hopeful, not wearied from her hard work, and 
famous. While here she determined upon a statue of 
Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning 
her and her times. 

After Miss Hosmer’s return to Rome, she worked on 
“Zenobia” with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the 
clay, and then the plaster. When brought to this coun¬ 
try, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to 
see it. In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair 
in behalf of the soldiers. Whittier said: “It very fully 
expresses my conception of what historical sculpture 
should be. It tells its whole proud and melancholy story. 
In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly 
serving her country while working out her magnificent de¬ 
sign abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public 
officers in their departments.” From its exhibition Miss 
Idosmer received five thousand dollars. It was purchased 
by Mr. A. W. Griswold, of New York. So great a work 
was the statue considered in London, that some of the 
papers declared Gibson to be its author. Miss Hosmer 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


213 


at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily 
made. 

In i860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see 
her father, who was seriously ill. How proud Dr. Hos¬ 
mer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her 
fame was in two hemispheres! Surely he had not 
“spoiled’ ’ her. She could now spend for him as he had 
spent for her in her childhood. While here, she received 
a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait- 
statue of Missouri's famous statesman, Thomas Hart 
Benton. 

She was now in the midst of busy and successful work. 
Orders crowded upon her. Her “Sleeping Faun,” which 
was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold 
on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir 
Benjamin Guinness. Some discussion having arisen 
about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if 
money could buy it, he would possess it. Miss Hosmer, 
however, would receive only the five thousand. The faun 
is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly 
draped in the spoils of a tiger. A little faun, with mis¬ 
chievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the 
tiger-skin. The newspapers were enthusiastic about the 
work. 

Many of the closing years of the sculptor’s long life 
were spent in Rome, where she had a wide circle of 
eminent American and English friends, among whom 
were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the 
Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, 
one of which was a process of hardening limestone so that 
it resembled marble. She also wrote both prose and 
poetry, and would have been successful as an author, if 
she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved 
sculpture. 

After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years 


214 


HARRIET G. HOSMER 


in England, executing important commissions, and then 
turned her face toward America. In Watertown, where 
she was born, she again made her home; and here she 
breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of 
three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By 
her long life of earnest work and self-reliant purpose, 
coupled with her high gift, she made for herself an abid¬ 
ing place in the history of art. 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


Although Julia Ward came of a distinguished and 
wealthy family, she never, even as a girl, traded upon 
that fact. She made use of her splendid talents to enrich 
the world. She was born May 27, 1819, in a hand¬ 
some home in Bowling Green, at that time the fashionable 
part of New York City. Her father, Samuel Ward, 
was a merchant and banker of New York. 

“He was a majestic person,” says the daughter, “of 
somewhat severe aspect and reserved manners, but with 
a vein of true genialty and a great benevolence of heart. 
His great gravity, and the absence of a mother, naturally 
subdued the tone of the whole household; and though 
a greatly cherished set of children, we were not a very 
merry one.” 

Her grandfather, Samuel Ward, a graduate of Brown 
University, was a lieutenant-colonel in the Revolution¬ 
ary War. Four of Julia Ward’s ancestors were gover¬ 
nors of Rhode Island, two Wards and two Greens. On 
her mother’s side her ancestors were the Marions of 
South Carolina, her mother being a grand-niece of Gen¬ 
eral Marion. 

This mother, Julia Cutler Ward, was a woman of much 
beauty and intellect. She died at the early age of twenty- 
eight, leaving six little children, the fourth, Julia, only 
five years of age. 

The blow was a distressing one to the banker and his 
children. For weeks he lay prostrated on a bed of sick¬ 
ness. Finally his wife’s sister, Miss Eliza Cutler, came 
into the home to bring up the children as best she could. 

215 


216 JULIA WARD HOWE 

She was a witty and talented woman, and helped to de¬ 
velop them in mind as well as in body. 

Mrs. Laura E. Richards, the daughter of Julia Ward 
Howe, in her book, When I Was Your Age, says of 
Miss Cutler, “A very good aunt she was, and devoted to 
the motherless children; but sometimes she did funny 
things. They went out to ride every day—the children, 

I mean—in a great yellow chariot lined with fine blue 
cloth. Now, it occurred to their kind aunt that it 
would have a charming effect if the children were dressed 
to match the chariot. So thought, so done! Dress¬ 
makers and milliners plied their art; and one day Broad¬ 
way was electrified by the sight of the little Misses Ward, 
seated in uneasy state on the blue cushions, clad in wonder¬ 
ful raiment of yellow and blue. They had blue pelisses 
and yellow satin bonnets. 

“And this was all very well for the two younger ones, 
with their dark eyes and hair, and their rosy cheeks; but 
Julia, young as she was, felt dimly that blue and yellow 
was not the combination to set off her tawny locks and 
exquisite sea-shell complexion. It is not probable, how¬ 
ever, that she sorrowed deeply over the funny clothes; 
for her mind was never set on clothes, either in childhood 
or in later life. Did not her sister meet her one day com¬ 
ing home from school with one blue shoe and one green?” 

The little Julia showed great fondness for books. 
When nine years old she was studying Paley’s Moral 
Philosophy with girls twice her age. Yet with a love 
for studies beyond her years, she was a child at heart, 
and grieved when at this age her dolls were taken from 
her, and she was told that “Miss Ward was too old to 
play with dolls any longer.” “This heart-rending sepa¬ 
ration took place on her ninth birthday,” writes Mrs. 
Howe’s daughter, Maud. 

Distinguished authors gathered at the Ward home, and 



JULIA WARD HOWE 








JULIA WARD HOWE 


2i 7 


stimulated the young girl in her love for books. When 
she was sixteen she wrote, The Ill-cut Mantell; a 
Romaunt of the Time of Kynge Arthur, and gave the 
manuscript to her youngest sister, who relates this in¬ 
cident :— 

“One day the young poet chanced upon her two younger 
sisters busy in some childish game. She upbraided them 
for their frivolous pursuit, and insisted that they should 
occupy themselves, as she did, in the composition of verses. 
Louisa, the elder of the two, flatly refused to make the 
effort; but the little Annie dutifully obeyed the elder sister, 
and, after a long and resolute struggle, produced some 
stanzas, of which the following lines have always been 
remembered,— 

‘He hears the ravens when they call, 

And stands them in a pleasant hall. , ” 

The girl did not tell her father of these desires for 
authorship, lest he should be disturbed by such an un¬ 
usual wish on the part of a young woman. Though he 
loved her devotedly, and while eating his meals would 
hold in his left hand the hand of this daughter who sat 
next to him at table, she always stood somewhat in awe 
of him. 

Julia’s first published work, when she was seventeen, 
was “a review of a poem of Lamartine’s called ‘Jocelyn,’ 
together with a translation of parts of it.” She said, 
“The Rev. Leonard Woods, editor of one of the theo¬ 
logical reviews, published it. Then, not long afterward, 
I wrote an article on a translation that had just appeared 
of some of the minor poems of Goethe and Schiller. 
This was printed in the American Review, edited by 
Charles King, afterward President of Columbia College. 
Both of these articles attracted attention, and encouraged 
me very much.” 


2 l8 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


Artists as well as musicians and authors, came to 
the Ward mansion to visit its picture-gallery, where the 
father had collected many foreign works of art. It 
was not strange, therefore, that a sister of Julia should 
marry the well-known artist, Thomas Crawford of Rome, 
the father of Marion Crawford, the novelist. 

Beside all this study and intercourse with scholarly 
people, there were times of merry-making at the banker’s 
home. Mrs. Howe, in the Forum for July, 1893, in an 
article, “How the Fourth of July should be Celebrated,” 
speaks of the laughing faces of her young brothers, who, 
she says, were allowed to arrange a small table, for their 
greater convenience, on the pavement of ancient Bond 
Street, a very quiet by-way in those days. From this 
spot went forth a perpetual popping and fizzing, varied 
by the occasional thud of a double-headed fire-cracker. 
Shouts of merriment followed those explosions. The 
girls within-doors enjoyed the fracas from the open 
windows; and in the evening our good elders brought 
forth a store of Roman candles, blue lights, and rockets. 
I remember a year, early in the thirties, in which good 
Gideon Lee, a Democratic mayor of New York, issued 
an edict prohibitive of all home fireworks. Just as 
we had settled ourselves in the determination to regard 
him thenceforth as our natural enemy, the old gentleman’s 
heart failed him; and, living next door to us, he called 
to say that he would make a few exceptions to the rule for 
the day, and that we should count among these.” 

While in the prime of life, Samuel Ward, the father, 
died, and the family moved out of the Bond Street home, 
and went to live with an uncle, Mr. John Ward. Not 
long after, Julia, who was now a very attractive young 
woman, went to Boston on a visit. There she met Mar¬ 
garet Fuller, Horace Mann, Charles Sumner, Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, and other distinguished people. They were 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


219 


pleased with the intellectual and charming girl from 
New York; and she, in turn, revered the friends who 
gave her such a cordial welcome. 

Among this band of thinkers was Dr. Samuel Gridley 
Howe, already noted as a philanthropist and reformer. 
Born in Boston in 1801, a graduate from Brown Uni¬ 
versity in 1821, he espoused the cause of Greek inde¬ 
pendence in 1824, and sailed for Greece. At first he 
was a surgeon, and attempted to organize hospitals; 
then he took an active part in the war, and for two years 
suffered all the hardships and dangers of the conflict. 

When Julia Ward met Dr. Howe, who was eighteen 
years older than herself, it was not strange that among 
many admirers he won her heart and hand. “ ‘Chev’ 
was the name by which she always called our father,” 
says her daughter Laura: “it was an abbreviation of 
Chevalier; for he was always to her the ‘knight without 
reproach or fear.’ ” 

Soon after their wedding, Dr. and Mrs. Howe made 
an extended journey in Europe, taking with them the 
bride's youngest sister, Annie, who had written in her 
childhood the unique poem on the ravens standing in the 
hall. 

Arrived in England, many were eager to see Dr. 
Howe and his gifted young wife. They received much 
attention from Dickens, Carlyle, the Duchess of Suther¬ 
land, the poet Rogers, Sydney Smith, Monckton Milnes, 
and others. 

On their return to Boston, Dr. and Mrs. Howe found 
a warm welcome. Soon an estate was purchased near 
the Institution for the Blind, of which Dr. Howe always 
remained the director, which the young mother, on ac¬ 
count of its great garden and conservatories, called, half 
in sport, “Green Peace.” 

It was a roomy old house, with a large dining-room. 


220 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


“On the floor,” says the daughter Laura, “was a wonderful 
carpet, all in one piece, which was made in France, and 
had belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, a brother of the great 
emperor. In the middle was a medallion of Napoleon 
and Marie Louise, with sun-rays about them; then came 
a great circle, with strange beasts on it ramping and 
roaring (only they roared silently) ; and then a plain 
space; and in the corners birds and Ashes such as never 
were seen in air or sea. Yes, that was a carpet! It was 
here we danced the wonderful dances.” 

“Green Peace” was a home where the literary mother, 
her flock of six children, and the philanthropic father, 
found their greatest comfort. Dr. Howe played with 
his children, took them with him in his morning walks, 
told them stories, or read to them from his favorite 
poets, Scott and Byron. 

Mrs. Howe, with her beautiful voice, sang to the chil¬ 
dren the German songs which she and her brother had 
sung together after he came back from Heidelberg, or 
pretty French and Italian airs. When the little ones 
wanted a change she wrote songs of her own, composing 
both the music and the words, such as “Baby’s Shoes,” 
published in “Later Lyrics,”— 

“Little feet, pretty feet, 

Feet of fairy Maud, 

Fair and fleet, trim and neat, 

Carry her abroad! 

Be as wings, tiny things, 

To my butterfly: 

In the flowers, hours on hours. 

Let my darling lie. 

• • • • 

Like a charm which doth arm 
Some poor mother’s pain 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


221 


For the child dream-beguiled 
She shall know again, 

By the pet amulet 

Kept through lonely years; 

Little shoe, I and you 

Would not part for tears/' 

In 1854, when Mrs. Howe was thirty-five, her first 
volume of poems, Passion Flowers, was published anony¬ 
mously, though the authorship was soon guessed by 
Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and others. 

The following year, 1855, The World’s Own, a five- 
act tragedy in blank verse, was played at Wallack’s 
Theatre in New York, Mathilda Heron and Edwin 
Sothern taking part in it. Two years later, 1857, a 
second volume of poems appeared, Words for the Hour, 
full of the spirit of the sad and earnest years which 
preceded our Civil War. 

Both Dr. Howe and his wife were ardent workers in 
the anti-slavery cause. They edited an anti-slavery paper, 
the Boston Commonwealth, established by the patriotic 
and ever generous Mr: Stearns, and were leaders with 
Garrison, Sumner, Phillips, Higginson, and Theodore 
Parker. “It was my husband,” says Mrs. Howe, “who 
suggested the holding of meetings in Boston for the dis¬ 
cussion of the problem with Abolitionists on one side, 
and pro-slavery men on the other. Robert Toombs, 
who boasted that he would hold his slaves under the 
shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument, and Colonel 
Houston, I remember, game, and we had lively 
times.” 

In 1858 Hippolytus, a tragedy, was written for 
Edwin Booth by Mrs. Howe. A Trip to Cuba was 
published in i860, giving an account of a winter spent by 
Dr. Howe and herself in the tropics. The next year was 


222 JULIA WARD HOWE 

written the world-famed, Battle Hymn of the Republic. 
She has told how it came to be written. 

“In the late autumn of the year 1861 I visited the 
national capital, in company with my husband, Dr. Howe, 
and a party of friends, among whom were Governor and 
Mrs. Andrew, Mr. and Mrs. E. P. Whipple, and my 
dear pastor, Rev. James Freeman Clarke. 

“One day we drove out to attend a review of troops, 
appointed to take place some distance from the city. In 
the carriage with me were James Freeman Clarke and 
Mr. and Mrs. Whipple. The day was fine, and every¬ 
thing promised well; but a sudden surprise on the part of 
the enemy interrupted the proceedings before they were 
well begun. A small body of our men had been surrounded 
and cut off from their companions; re-enforcements were 
sent to their assistance, and the expected pageant was 
necessarily given up. The troops who were to have taken 
part in it were ordered back to their quarters, and we 
also turned our horses’ heads homeward. 

“For a long distance the foot-soldiers nearly filled the 
road. They were before and behind, and we were obliged 
to drive very slowly. We presently began to sing some 
of the well-known songs of the war, and among them,— 

'John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.’ 

“This seemed to please the soldiers, who cried, 'Good 
for you!’ and themselves took up the strain. Mr. Clarke 
said to me, ‘You ought to write some new words to that 
tune.’ I replied that I had often wished to do so. 

“In spite of the excitement of the day, I went to bed 
and slept as usual, but awoke next morning in the gray 
of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that 
the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my 
brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed 
itself in my thoughts, then hastily rose, saying to myself, 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


223 

I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately.’ 
I searched for a sheet of paper and an old stump of a pen 
which I had had the night before, and began to scrawl the 
lines almost without looking, as I had learned to do by 
often scratching down verses in the darkened room 
where my little children were sleeping. Having com¬ 
pleted this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not with¬ 
out feeling that something of importance had happened 
to me.” The poem was written at Willard’s Hotel. 

“One of my friends,” says Mrs. Howe, “now has the 
original ‘scrawl’ of the Battle Hymn. It is almost 
indecipherable; if I hadn’t copied it the day after it was 
written, I should probably have lost it.” 

About this time Mrs. Howe became interested in 
Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Howe says: “I think it may 
have been in 1869 that Colonel Higginson wrote to me, 
earnestly requesting that I would sign, with others, a call 
for a woman’s suffrage convention, to be held in Boston. 
The war had then brought many of us out of the ruts of 
established ways. It had changed the aspect of our social 
world, and, will ye, nill ye, had forced us to take a larger 
outlook into the possibilities of the future than it had 
been our wont to do. I not only signed the call just.men¬ 
tioned, but actually found my way into the assemblage, 
where Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Colonel Higginson, 
and William Lloyd Garrison occupied the platform. As 
I entered and shyly seated myself, a messenger sought me 
out, and invited me to sit with the friends of suffrage. 

“The speeches to which I listened were calm, even, and 
convincing; and when I, in turn, was requested to say a 
few words, I gave in my adherence to the cause. From 
that time forth I marched to the music of a new hope; 
and all the years that have passed since then I have never 
had occasion to regret the departure which I made then 
and there.” 


224 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


In 1869 Mrs. Howe helped to establish the New Eng¬ 
land Women’s Club, composed of several hundred able 
and cultured women, who met weekly to listen to some 
paper or discussion on educational or other useful topic. 
They had parlors in Park Street, Boston. Mrs. Howe 
was the second president of the club, and its members 
were never willing that she should resign. 

She also founded the Boston Saturday Morning Club. 
With Colonel Higginson, she founded the Town and 
'Country Club of Newport, and was its president. For 
many years Mrs. Howe was also president of the Asso¬ 
ciation for the Advancement of Women, of which she 
was an original member, and to whose annual congresses 
she contributed valuable papers. 

“In 1870,” says Mrs. Howe, “the horrors of the 
Franco-Russian war moved me to write an epistle 'to 
womanhood throughout the world,’ asserting the right of 
women to prevent the waste of life, of which they alone 
knew the cost. This document was translated into sev¬ 
eral languages, and was quite widely distributed and 
read.” 

In 1873 Dr. Howe and his wife paid a second visit to 
San Domingo and became deeply attached to the people. 
The health of the former had become much impaired by 
his severe labors; and on January 9, 1876, he died after 
a brief illness. Dr. James Freeman Clarke says of Dr. 
Howe, in his volume of Memorial Sketches , “To me 
it seems that his last work was far greater than his first, 
and that the chivalry of his youth was crowned by the 
diviner and more gallant endeavors and successes of his 
manhood and age.” 

Mr. Anagnos, a Greek, who started the first kinder¬ 
garten for the blind at the Institution, had married the 
eldest daughter, Julia Romana Howe, a young woman of 
superior mind and character, whose early death brought 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


225 


sorrow to a great many hearts. Her fair face and gentle 
presence among the blind children who loved her linger 
in my memory as an exquisite picture. Mr. Anagnos 
succeeded Dr. Howe. 

The year after Dr. Howe’s death, Mrs. Howe took her 
daughter Maud to Europe, and remained abroad two 
years, visiting England, France, Holland, Switzerland, 
Germany, Egypt, Syria, Italy, Turkey, and Greece. 

Thereafter she devoted herself untiringly to everything 
that elevated humanity. She lectured in all parts of the 
United States, always showing herself to be the elegant, 
well-bred highly-educated woman. Some of her best- 
known lectures are, “Is Polite Society Polite?” “Greece 
Revisited,” “Women in the Greek Drama,” and “Reminis¬ 
cences of Longfellow and Emerson.” 

She lectured before the Parisians in the French lan¬ 
guage, on the education and condition of women in the 
United States, also in Florence, Italy, and Athens. 
During her last visit to Rome she preached two sermons. 

In her own country she preached in many pulpits. 
“I well remember,” she says, “the astonishment of people 
when, a great many years ago, I preached a sermon in a 
Boston church. Yet at the time I did not think of the 
criticism that would be passed upon me for doing it. 
I simply felt the desire to preach, so I preached; and 1 
have preached a great many times since in churches. . . . 
I have seen the barriers against women slowly broken 
down during the past quarter of the century; and I feel 
sure that the time is coming when women will have all the 
political and industrial privileges of men.” 

“I have great faith,” says Mrs. Howe, “in the minis¬ 
terial ability of women, and was one of a committee which 
held the first convention of women ministers in Boston, 
late in the seventies.” 

Mrs. Howe was a contributor to many periodicals. 


226 JULIA WARD HOWE 

For some time she was an associate editor of the 
Woman's Journal. Besides, she published several books, 
Modern Society in 1881, a Life of Margaret Fuller in 
1883, and edited others. 

When the women’s department of the Cotton Centen¬ 
nial Exhibition at New Orleans, in the winter of 1885, 
needed as its head a woman of energy, brain, and pol¬ 
ished manners, Mrs. Howe was at once chosen, and filled 
the position to the satisfaction of all. She was none the 
less warmly welcomed because she had adhered to princi¬ 
ple in the anti-slavery days. 

On her seventy-fifth birthday, 1894, a reception was 
given Mrs. Howe by her son, Henry M. Howe, a noted 
mining engineer, at his home on Marlborough Street, 
Boston. The New York Critic of June 2, said: “Nota¬ 
ble men and women gathered to honor her. To repeat 
their names would be to repeat the names of the leaders 
of the social and literary circles. That Mrs. Howe her¬ 
self enters into the last quarter of her century with the 
same strong physical and mental powers which have dis¬ 
tinguished her in the past is shown by her active work 
on the days preceding her birthday. Last week she 
delivered a most interesting address before the High 
School Alumni, and yesterday she presided at a meeting 
of the woman suffragists of New England.” 

At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 
1893, Mrs. Howe spoke before the Woman’s Congress, 
the Parliament of Religions, the Congress of Social 
Purity, and in the Woman’s Building. 

Invited to Des Moines, Iowa, in the spring of 1894, 
the Iowa State Legislature, sent Mrs. Howe an official 
invitation to visit both houses at a stated time. They 
sent a carriage to bring her to the State House, where 
the Governor received her, and conducted her first to the 
Senate and then to the House of Representatives. In 


JULIA WARD HOWE 


227 


each of these her entrance was officially announced, the 
whole body standing until she had taken her seat beside 
the Speaker, who made her an address of welcome, to 
which she responded. 

Mrs. Howe’s friends were the eminent ones of two 
hemispheres. Kossuth was given a great reception at 
Green Peace. Agassiz was a loved and frequent visitor. 
Charles Sumner found the Howe home one of rest and 
congeniality. Edwin Booth came to a party given in his 
honor; and Mrs. Richards tells how “instead of talking 
to all the fine people who were dying for a word with 
him, he spent nearly the whole evening in a corner with 
little Maud, who enjoyed herself immensely. What 
wonder, when he made dolls for her out of handker¬ 
chiefs, and danced them with dramatic fervor?” 

But not to the great only was Mrs. Howe a friend. 
Her daughter Laura says, “Our mother’s hospitality was 
boundless. She loved to fill the little house to overflow¬ 
ing, in summer days, when every one was glad to get out 
into the fresh, green country. Often the beds were all 
filled, and we children had to take to sofas and cots. 
Once, I remember, Harry slept on a mattress laid on top 
of the piano, there being no other vacant spot.” 

Thus passed a long, busy, and useful life; and it was 
at the ripe age of ninety-one that it ceased. Julia Ward 
Howe passed away, October 17, 1910. To the last she 
was alert and dominant, a welcome figure at any public 
gathering. Her Reminiscences, in 1899, was her last 
book. 


JANE ADDAMS 

It is a wonderful thing to have performed a helpful 
service, and to have written a helpful book. The author 
of Twenty Years at Hull-House has done both, and 
I wish that everybody could read it. One closes the 
book with a resolution to carry out in life Emerson’s 
motto, “Help Somebody,” and to feel that one who does 
not live for others makes a failure of the present and the 
future. 

Jane Addams who wrote the book, and who made 
Hull-House a power for good both at home and abroad, 
was born at Cedarville, Illinois, September 6, 1869, one 
of the younger members of a large family. Her mother 
died when she was a baby. 

Her father owned two mills not far from their home, 
a flour mill and a sawmill and later was president of a 
bank, and member of the State Senate for sixteen years. 

She was a delicate child because of a curvature of the 
spine, but she was a lover of nature, eager to learn, and a 
thinker even when young. Before she was seven years 
old, she showed a deep interest in the inequalities of life. 

She says: “On that day I had my first sight of the 
poverty which implies squalor, and felt the curious dis¬ 
tinction between the ruddy poverty of the country and 
that which even a small city presents in its shabbiest 
streets. I remember launching at my father the perti¬ 
nent inquiry why people lived in such horrid little houses 
so close together, and that after receiving his explana¬ 
tion, I declared with much firmness when I grew up I 

should, of course, have a large house, but it would not 

228 


JANE ADDAMS 


229 


be built among the other large houses, but right in the 
midst of horrid little houses like these.” And all this has 
come true. 

When she was about eight years old this desire of 
equality for all was put to the test. She appeared before 
her father in a handsome new cloak, as they were about 
to go to Sunday School where he taught a large Bible 
Class. It was so much finer than any other child had, 
that he advised her to wear her old one, that the children 
might not feel bad. “I complied with the request,” she 
says, “but I fear without inner consent, and I certainly 
was quite without the joy of self-sacrifice as I walked 
soberly though the village street by the side of my coun¬ 
selor.” 

He told his little girl that “people might be equal in 
things that mattered much more than clothes, the affairs 
of education and religion, for instance, which we 
attended to when we went to school and church, and that 
it was very stupid to wear the sort of clothes that made 
it harder to have equality even there.” A Quaker by 
descent, Mr. Addams’ life of probity and high ideals 
necessarily bore fruit in his family. He was a friend 
of Lincoln, and the letters he had received from the 
great man made a deep impression upon his little daugh¬ 
ter. It was said of Mr. Addams that in the trying recon¬ 
struction days after the Civil War, “he had never been 
offered a bribe because bad men were instinctively afraid 
of him.” He died in August, 1881. 

In 1877, when Jane Addams was seventeen, she went 
to Rockford Seminary, Illinois, which soon after became 
a college. Her three older sisters had attended there, 
and her father was a trustee, but she greatly desired to go 
to Smith College. 

Miss Addams gave much time to Greek and mathema¬ 
tics. “My genuine interest was history” she says, 


230 


JANE ADDAMS 


“partly because of a superior teacher, and partly because 
my father had always insisted upon a certain amount of 
historic reading ever since he had paid me, as a little girl, 
five cents a Life for each Plutarch hero I could intelli¬ 
gently report to him, and twenty-live cents for every 
volume of Irving’s Life of Washington ” 

Before her graduation she had decided to study medi¬ 
cine and “live with the poor.” The winter after leaving 
college was spent at the Woman’s Medical College of 
Philadelphia, but the old spinal difficulty compelled her 
to enter the hospital of Dr. Weir Mitchell, and to go to 
Europe for two years. 

In these years abroad, she says, she “was irresistibly 
drawn to the poorer quarters of each city. She saw, 
as all of us have seen who are interested in the inequali¬ 
ties of life, the struggles of the poor in the East End of 
London; saw them on Saturday night, buying at auction 
decaying fruit and vegetables; saw one man who had 
bidden in a cabbage, sit down on the curb, and hastily 
devour it raw. 

While she studied art in Dresden and in Rome, she 
could not forget the underpaid laborers, and the dire 
poverty she met. On her return she spent two winters in 
Baltimore attending lectures at Johns Hopkins Univer¬ 
sity, and her summers at her Illinois home, where she 
united with the Presbyterian Church. 

In one of these summers, she says: “I visited a 
Western State where I had formerly invested a sum of 
money in mortgages. I was much horrified by the 
wretched conditions among the farmers, which had 
resulted from a long period of drought, and one forlorn 
picture was fairly burned into my mind. A number of 
starved hogs—collateral for a promissory note—were 
huddled into an open pen. Their backs were humped in 
a curious camel-like fashion, and they were devouring 


JANE ADDAMS 


231 


one of their own number, the latest victim of absolute 
starvation, or possibly merely the one least able to defend 
himself against their voracious hunger. 

“The farmer’s wife looked on indifferently, a picture 
of despair as she stood in the door of the bare, crude 
house, and the two children behind her, whom she vainly 
tried to keep out of sight, continually thrust forward 
their faces almost covered by masses of coarse, sun¬ 
burned hair, and their little bare feet so black, so hard, 
the great cracks so filled with dust that they looked like 
flattened hoofs. The children could not be compared to 
anything so joyous as satyrs, although they appeared but 
half-human. It seemed to me quite impossible to receive 
interest from mortgages placed upon farms which might 
at any season be reduced to such conditions, and with 
great inconvenience to my agent and doubtless to the 
farmers, as speedily as possible I withdrew all my 
investment.” 

During Miss Addams’ second journey in Europe she at¬ 
tended a meeting of the London match girls who were 
on strike. The low wages and their physical condition 
deeply affected her. “This impression of human misery,” 
she says, “was added to the others which were already 
making me so wretched.” She was learning more and 
more that culture, unless put to use for humanity, can 
easily become selfishness, and that it is far from soul- 
satisfying. 

She had become convinced that it would be a good 
thing to rent a house in Chicago where actual needs ex¬ 
isted, where young women who had devoted themselves 
to study might come in contact with life itself, and a life 
that required their unselfish aid. She finally found 
courage to talk the matter over with Miss Ellen Gates 
Starr, her old-time school friend, who was travelling 
with her, and who became deeply interested in the plan. 


232 


JANE ADDAMS 


In June, 1888, five years after her first visit to the poor 
of East London, she was visiting Toynbee Hall and the 
People’s Palace, and in January, 1889, on their return to 
America, she and Miss Starr were searching for a suita¬ 
ble house in Chicago for settlement work. 

After much looking, a large house was found at 335 
South Halsted Street, built for a home in 1856 by Mr. 
Charles J. Hull. The lower part of it was now used for 
offices and storerooms in connection with a factory that 
stood back of it. Before this it had been occupied by the 
Little Sisters of the Poor as a home for the aged. An 
undertaking establishment was on one side, and a saloon 
on the other. The fine old house was repaired and fur¬ 
nished, and on September 18, 1889, Miss Addams, Miss 
Starr and Miss Keyser moved into it. 

Miss Helen Culver, the owner, a relative of Mr. Hull, 
soon gave the rent, and so much interested did she become, 
that the present group of thirteen buildings added in the 
past twenty years, all heated and lighted from a central 
plant, is built largely on land which she “has put at the 
service of the Settlement which bears Mr. Hull’s name.” 

Hull-House, formerly in the suburbs, is now thickly 
surrounded by Italians, Greeks, Russian Jews, Bohemians, 
and other nationalities, Chicago ranking at one time as 
the third Bohemian city in the world. 

Miss Addams says of their ward at the time they moved 
into Hull-House: “The streets are inexpressibly dirty, 
the number of schools inadequate, sanitary legislation un¬ 
enforced, the street lighting bad, the paving miserable and 
altogether lacking in alleys and smaller streets, and the 
stables foul beyond description. Hundreds of houses 
are unconnected with the street sewer.” 

Sweat-shops abounded. “An unscrupulous contractor 
regards no basement as too dark, no stable loft too 
foul, no rear shanty too provisional, no tenement room 


JANE ADDAMS 233 

too small for his workroom, as these conditions imply 
low rental/’ 

Among all these poor people, mostly foreigners, were 
some who had seen better days, but whom losses or dis¬ 
appointments had forced to such cheap rents. 

Volunteers for the settlement work came quickly. A 
young lady came every morning from her home on the 
North Side to conduct a kindergarten in the drawing¬ 
room. Another organized a Boys’ Club, “The Young 
Heroes” who listened to chivalrous tales, and undoubt¬ 
edly resolved to become heroes themselves. On the 
first Christmas at Hull-House, Miss Addams says, “in 
spite of exigent demands upon my slender purse for 
candy and shoes, I gave to a club of boys twenty-five 
copies of the then new Carl Schurz’s Appreciation of 
Abraham Lincoln .” Thus a great ideal was placed before 
them. 

This Club has grown through all the years into the 
Boys’ Club building, five stories high, built by one of 
the trustees of Hull-House “with well equipped shops for 
work in wood, iron and brass; for smithing in copper 
and tin; for commercial photography, for printing, for 
telegraphy, and electrical construction. These classes 
meet twice a week and are taught by intelligent working¬ 
men,” says Miss Addams, “who apparently give the boys 
what they want better than do the strictly professional 
teachers.” 

The girls were gathered into sewing classes, and could 
carry home the garments they made. There were also 
classes in cooking, dressmaking and millinery. A day 
nursery was carried on if or sixteen years. “We early 
learned to know the children of hard-driven mothers who 
went out to work all day,” says Miss Addams, “some¬ 
times leaving the little things in the casual care of a 
neighbor, but often locking them into their tenement 


234 


JANE ADDAMS 

rooms. The first three crippled children we encountered 
in the neighborhood had all been injured while their moth¬ 
ers were at work. One had fallen out of a third story 
window, another had been burned, and the third had a 
curved spine, due to the fact that for three years he had 
been tied all day long to the leg of the kitchen table, 
only released at noon by his older brother, who hastily 
ran in from a neighboring factory to share his lunch 
with him. 

“When the hot weather came, the restless children 
could not brook the confinement of the stuffy rooms, and, 
as it was not considered safe to leave the doors open be¬ 
cause of sneak thieves, many of the children were locked 
out. During our first summer an increasing number of 
these poor little mites would wander into the cool hall¬ 
way of Hull-House. We kept them there and fed them 
at noon, in return for which we were sometimes offered a 
hot penny which had been held in a tight little fist ever 
since mother left in the morning, to buy something to 
eat with. 

“Out of kindergarten hours our little guests noisily 
enjoyed the hospitality of our bedrooms under the so- 
called care of any resident to keep an eye on them.” Thus 
the necessity of a day nursery became apparent. “With 
all the efforts made by modern society to nurture and 
educate the young, how stupid it is,” says Miss Addams, 
“to permit the mothers of young children to spend them¬ 
selves in the coarser work of the world!” 

The older people were not forgotten on the first New 
Year’s Day at Hull-House. Many of them gathered, a 
carriage being sent for the most feeble, and an Old 
Settler’s Party was organized. This has been carried 
on each year. 

For several years, knowing how aged people dreaded 
and struggled against the “poor-house,” Miss Addams 


JANE ADDAMS 


235 


arranged a two week’s vacation for many from’ the 
Cook County Infirmary. A dollar a week provided a 
lodging with some old acquaintance; they could have 
two good meals a day at the coffee-house established at 
Hull-House, where many factory operatives and others 
came for food; and they went back comparatively happy 
to spend a winter in remembering the bright days, and 
looking forward to them again. 

The “residents” at Hull-House were called upon for 
every kind of charity. A woman would come, daily 
beaten by her husband. They were asked to wash a 
new-born baby or to conduct a funeral. All this was 
different from studying art in Europe, but it brought 
real happiness to be of service in the world. 

The Working People’s Social Science Club was or¬ 
ganized in 1890, and many prominent men, like Henry 
George, spoke to large audiences at Hull-House. 

The Jane Club, a co-operative undertaking in board 
for working girls, has been most successful. A friend 
of one of the Trustees offered twenty thousand dollars 
to build a house for this club. When Miss Addams 
learned that this man “was notorious for underpaying 
the girls in his establishment and concerning whom there 
were even darker stories,” she refused the money. Later 
a new club house was built by an old friend of Hull- 
House. From the first, winter concerts were greatly 
enjoyed, and in 1893 Hull-House Music School was 
opened in quarters of its own. Loan exhibitions of pic¬ 
tures were given at Butler Art Gallery, which has a read¬ 
ing-room on the first floor, and a studio above. 

Besides her great labor at Hull-House, Miss Addams 
has been a remarkable worker in other ways. She 
helped to obtain the first factory law of Illinois, regulat¬ 
ing the sanitary conditions of sweat-shops, and fixing 
fourteen as the age at which a child might be employed. 


236 


JANE ADDAMS 


This necessitated much speaking before social clubs, and 
other organizations to arouse public sentiment. 

After the Pullman car strike, she assisted in procur¬ 
ing a law creating a State Board of Conciliation and 
Arbitration, also free employment bureaus under State 
control, with power by the officials to regulate private 
employment agencies. This law was passed by the 
Illinois Legislature, in 1899. It is not strange that with 
her womanliness, her deep interest in the oppressed, her 
sympathy and her good judgment, she has been one of 
the arbitrators appointed by the mayor in several strikes. 

Hull-House has taken an active part against the 
wretched tenements where tuberculosis thrives. In 1902, 
in an epidemic of typhoid fever, it was found that their 
ward, with one thirty-sixth of the population of the 
city, registered one sixth of the total number of deaths. 
The sanitary inspection had been most incompetent. 

Hull-House has worked for public baths for the peo¬ 
ple. It has also labored against the sale of cocaine to 
minors, and helped to obtain an effective law regulating 
such sale in 1907. 

Hull-House joined actively with the Juvenile Court 
upon the latter’s establishment in Chicago, in 1899. 
When the Court was housed in a model building of its 
own in 1907, alarmed by the amount of juvenile delin¬ 
quency and crime, the Juvenile Protection Association was 
formed, whose twenty-two officers thereafter met weekly 
at Hull-House “with their executive committee to report 
what they have found, and to discuss city conditions ef¬ 
fecting the lives of children and young people.” 

Miss Addams constantly urged playgrounds for the 
children, and recreation for the young who seek adven¬ 
ture and will have entertainment. She made an able 
plea for this in her book, The Spirit of Youth and the 
City Streets. 


JANE ADDAMS 


237 


She also wrote other books; “Democracy and Social 
Ethics” and “The Newer Ideals of Peace.” In the latter 
she speaks earnestly of the duty of the State to protect its 
children. Of the two million children under sixteen, 
according to the census of 1900, who are earning their 
own living, she says, “We have made public education 
our great concern in America. It has spared no pains 
to make the system complete, and yet as rapidly as the 
children leave the schoolroom, the State seems to lose 
all interest and responsibility in their welfare and has, 
until quite recently, turned them over to the employer 
with no restrictions. 

“At no point does the community say to the employer, 
we are allowing you to profit by the labor of these chil¬ 
dren whom we have educated at great cost, and we demand 
that they do not work so many hours that they shall 
be exhausted. Nor shall they be allowed to undertake the 
sort of labor which is beyond their strength.” 

Miss Addams was made a member of the Chicago 
Board of Education in 1905, and has for years spoken 
before large audiences, east and west, with convincing 
power and persuasion, on philanthropic and educational 
matters. 

In 1895, after an illness from typhoid fever, she went 
to Europe to regain her health, meeting Tolstoy at his 
Russian home, and many other distinguished persons. 
She again visited Europe in 1900. 

Miss Addams was the President of the National Con¬ 
ference of Charities and Correction held at St. Louis, 
in May, 1910. Dr. Graham Romeyn Taylor, founder 
of Chicago Commons Social Settlement says: “The St. 
Louis Conference would go down as memorable, if for 
no other reason than that it was the year of Jane Addams’ 
presidency and leadership, and the occasion of her key¬ 
note utterance on Charity and Social Justice.” 


238 


JANE ADDAMS 


The outbreak of the World War found Miss Addams’ 
sympathies strongly enlisted on the side of peace; and 
throughout the struggle she bent her energies to the 
speedy ending of the struggle and the prevention of all 
wars in the future. To many, even of her friends, this 
might seem Utopian but it is by no means the first of her 
dreams for the advancement of mankind. She also 
served on the Executive Committee of the American 
Union Against Militaism. 

She was chosen as the first Chairman of the Women’s 
Peace Party, and Chairman of the International Com¬ 
mittee of Women for Permanent Peace. 

A high honor came to her when she was elected Presi¬ 
dent of the International Congress of Women, in 1919. 
She attended the Peace Conventions at the Hague, in 
1915, at Zurich, in 1919, and at Vienna, in 1921. 

Besides the books already mentioned she wrote A New 
Conscience and an Ancient Evil, 1911; and five years 
later The Long Road of Women’s Memory, which con¬ 
tains many interesting side glimpses of this foremost of 
women for world uplift and betterment. 

Miss Addams has been quite active in America in the 
suffrage movement. But her methods have always been 
those of conciliation. Floyd Dell, in comparing her 
fight for suffrage with that of Mrs. Pankhurst in England, 
showed how opposed they were in method (Women as 
World Builders) : 

“No one would call Miss Addams implacable. It is 
not intended to suggest that Miss Addams is one of those 
inveterate compromisers who prefer a bad peace to a 
good war. But she has the gift of imaginative sympathy; 
and it is impossible for her to have toward either party in 
conflict the cold hostility which each party has for the 
other. She sees both sides; and even though one side 


JANE ADDAMS 239 

is the wrong side, she cannot help seeing why its parti¬ 
sans believe in it.” 

“If the under dog were always right,” Miss Addams 
has said, “one might quite easily try to defend him. 
The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, 
sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong, 
but perhaps he is never altogether wrong and pigheaded 
and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by 
those who add the possession of prejudice to the other 
almost insuperable difficulties in understanding him.” 

Jane Addams has received many honors richly de¬ 
served. The University of Wisconsin on its fiftieth 
anniversary gave her a doctor’s degree. Yale, in 1910, 
gave her the degree of Master of Arts, the first woman, 
it is said, to receive a degree from that University. Pro¬ 
fessor Perrin in conferring it said of her work for hu¬ 
manity; “She has had a prophetic vision of what might 
be done, and militant courage, united with a high order 
of administrative, social, and political capacity in do¬ 
ing and getting it done. The world at last realizes 
her worth.” 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


To be born in a small country town, to earn money for 
an education, to help educate brother and sisters, and later 
become the honored and loved president of a large East¬ 
ern college, and an educational power in the land, is no 
small thing. 

Alice Elvira Freeman was born February 21, 1855, 
in Colesville, New York. Her father, descended from 
James Knox of Washington’s Life Guard, was an hon¬ 
est hard-working farmer, and her mother a farmer’s 
daughter. She had been a teacher and an earnest advo¬ 
cate of temperance. Both parents were devoted members 
of the Presbyterian Church. When Alice was five years 
old, there were three younger children to be cared for. 
This burden of love she took upon herself as largely as 
possible for several years, while the young mother helped 
in the multitudinous duties of life on a farm. 

When President of Wellesley College, years after, 
Miss Freeman told me how, loving fairy stories, she 
related to the children all she had read. She taught 
herself to read when she was three, and as books were 
few in the farmer’s home, she improvised more tales. 
Bible stories, too, were great favorites, and the three 
little Freemans soon knew by heart, Joseph in Egypt, 
Daniel in the lion’s den, and many others. Once she told 
them a bear story so successfully that she badly fright¬ 
ened herself and the rest, and when the parents returned 
at nightfall, they found the little family hiding behind 
doors, supperless, awaiting the expected but unwelcome 
animals. 

There was much health and happiness in this country 

240 



ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 









ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


241 


life, for they had the companionship of the birds, and 
the animals on the farm, and loved trees and flowers and 
brooks. But Mr. and Mrs. Freeman longed for more 
education and a broader field of usefulness. Could he 
become a physician? This was a difficult matter with 
a wife and four little children. But Mrs. Freeman en¬ 
couraged him, and promised to carry on the farm while 
he was absent for two years at the Albany Medical 
School. All, meantime, learned rigid economy, earnest 
industry, and increased in desire to make the most of 
life in whatever surroundings. 

When the father returned, after a medical course, 
the farm was abandoned, and the family moved to the 
neighboring village of Windsor. Here the young doctor 
prospered in his profession. 

At ten years of age, Alice entered Windsor Academy, 
an excellent school, which Dr. Freeman had aided and 
developed. The girl learned quickly, excelling in what¬ 
ever branch of study she took up. With a desire to 
help everybody, as she had helped all on the farm, she 
made friends and kept them. Her enthusiasm and cheer¬ 
ful temperament, her hope and optimism made her a 
leader even in her youth. 

A young teacher had come to the school from Prince¬ 
ton Theological Seminary. To Alice he probably seemed 
an ideal of manhood. To the young man, the bright 
girl with her earnest nature and desire for knowledge 
seemed a fitting helper in his chosen work of the minis¬ 
try, a few years later on. 

At fourteen she became engaged to him, he to finish 
his course of study, and then she would join him in some 
country parish. The most natural thing happened. The 
girl who loved knowledge longed for a college education 
such as her teacher had enjoyed. Six months showed 
her, and possibly the young man, that she, at least, was 


242 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


far too young to consider marriage, and there was a 
mutual separation, with good will and esteem. 

There was much talk concerning education in the 
Freeman family, but always about the one son. The 
surprise came when the eldest daughter said, “Father, 
I want to go to college.” 

She had taught her brother Latin, she had been an 
inspiration to him, but there was no money for two to 
be educated. Alice showed the family how necessary it 
was that she should not only be self-supporting, but 
help support and educate the brother and two sisters. 

It was ascertained that Michigan University at Ann 
Arbor was one of the very few places of learning that 
thought it wise for women to be well educated, and had 
opened its doors to them two years previously. It seems 
strange now to think of the foolish arguments used: 
that girls would lose their health by study; that they 
would cease to be refined and lovely if they learned Greek 
and higher mathematics; that they would not marry or 
be sought in marriage—forgetting that the ideal marriage 
is always true companionship. 

In June, 1872, having graduated from Windsor Acad¬ 
emy at seventeen, Dr. Freeman took his daughter Alice 
on the long journey to Michigan to attend Commence¬ 
ment and take the entrance examinations. She did not 
pass! If her father thought for a moment that Alice 
would give up the project, the slight, ardent girl did 
not think of it. They talked with the noble President 
Angell, who, realizing that Windsor Academy was not 
a preparatory school for colleges, urged the examiners 
to give her a trial of six weeks. 

She remained at Ann Arbor, rising every morning 
at four o’clock to study Greek, and made up her 
conditions, carrying on her class work at the same 
time. 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


243 


After two years in College, money must be earned. 
The brave girl did not write home pecuniary troubles, but 
applied to President Angell for a school. This was 
found at the head of the Ottawa, Illinois, High School, 
where the hundred young men and women were nearly 
her own age. She won the love of the scholars, stimu¬ 
lated them greatly in their Greek and Latin, and was 
urged to remain a second year, which she declined. 

These University years were a delight, with all their 
hardships. She writes home cheerful letters, even though 
she is “wearing her old black hat, buying two yards of 
ribbon and trimming it herself,’' saying, “Whatever 
comes, I know is best for me. It is all right. Still I 
believe God helps only those who help themselves. If 
our Father wants me to go through college, I know I 
shall go; and if Lie doesn’t, I don’t want to. That is 
the end of it. Meanwhile I am planning 2nd thinking.” 

But study was not the whole of college life. She 
joined college clubs, distinguished herself in the debating 
society, united with the Presbyterian Church, taught in 
the Sunday School and in a Mission School, was very 
active in the college Christian Association, and did some 
tutoring in Latin and Greek. 

With all the work, she kept the sunny nature which 
was her’s through life. President Angell wrote of her, 
“Her soul seemed bubbling over with joy, which she 
wished to share with the other girls. While she was, 
therefore, in the most friendly relations with all the girls 
then in college, she was the radiant centre of a consider¬ 
able group whose tastes were congenial with her own. 
Her nature was so large and generous, so free from envy, 
that she was esteemed by all her comrades, whether they 
cherished exactly her ideals or not.” 

Miss Freeman graduated in 1876, with honor, in a 
University of fifteen hundred students, almost all young 


244 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


men. In her own class were sixty-four men and eleven 
women. She was always an advocate of co-education. 
In the home, in the school, in social life, men and women 
had grown up together. She saw no reason why four 
years of study should keep them separate. 

Life had not been easy at the University, and now 
it was to be harder still. She must earn for others, and 
was glad to do it. She taught for a year at Lake Geneva, 
Wisconsin, in a seminary for girls, and then for two 
years was Principal of The East Saginaw, Michigan, 
High School. 

The health of a favorite sister, Stella, had failed 
through consumption. Dr. Freeman had met pecuniary 
reverses, and turned his property over to his creditors. 
The college girl now showed that with her sweetness 
and cheer there was great strength of character. She 
and her sister Ella, whom she had already aided and who 
was teaching, rented and furnished a house, and moved 
the family to Saginaw. The father resumed his practice 
and the son found a place in a store. Later he attended 
the Medical School of the University of Michigan. But 
all the comfort and success in the new home could not save 
Stella. She died in June, 1879, at the a ge of eighteen, 
deeply beloved and mourned. 

Miss Freeman was not to remain long in the west. In 
1875, Henry F. Durant of Boston, a noted and brilliant 
lawyer, having lost his only son and heir by death, opened 
on his estate at Wellesley, fifteen miles from Boston, a 
college for women. On his three hundred acres of 
beautiful lake, woodland, hill and valley, a great build¬ 
ing of brick and stone had arisen in the form of a Latin 
Cross, covered by a Mansard roof, four hundred and 
seventy-five feet long, and one hundred feet broad, the 
whole surmounted with towers and bays and porches. 
Mr. Durant made the interior beautiful with famous 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


245 


pictures, and tropical plants. His own library of ten 
thousand volumes was added. When his million dollar 
gift was ready, and girls were eager to come, his great 
need was able teachers. Naturally he turned to President 
Angell of Michigan University, who recommended 
Miss Freeman among them. She was offered the chair 
of Mathematics in 1877, and that of Greek in 1878, but 
declined. In 1879, after Stella’s death, she accepted the 
professorship of History at Wellesley. 

For eight years she did wonderful work. She made 
the scholars in love with their studies. She taught, she 
gave a public lecture each week on some historical 
subject; she was the confidant, the advisor, the friend and 
leader. She used to tell the girls, “God has made you 
after His own plan, and He places you where He wishes 
you to work with Him to bring about the highest results 
for yourself. He has given you every opportunity. 
Make yourself what you will—remember it lies with you. 
God can make no mistakes.” 

Mr. Durant, far-sighted and absorbed in his great plan, 
soon saw, as he said, that “the little dark-eyed girl 
would be the next president.” She was only twenty- 
four, but her executive ability, her ideas of what a college 
for women should be, and the uplift caused by her en¬ 
thusiasm, all pointed to her to carry on his work. But 
the next year, 1880, she had a hemorrhage of the lungs, 
and was obliged to give up her strenuous labors for a 
time, and live in the open air. The following year, 1881, 
in October, Mr. Durant died, and Miss Freeman, the 
youngest of the professors, was made acting president 
and president in full the next year. 

She showed great administrative power. During her 
presidency, fifteen suitable preparatory schools were 
opened in various parts of the country. She started the 
subscription for Norumbega hall, opened in 1886 The 


246 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


number of scholarships was doubled. More students 
applied by far than could be provided for. 

She loved the college and spread its merits abroad. 
She founded Wellesley Clubs, often spoke in public for 
its advancement, and invited distinguished guests to ad¬ 
dress the students or attend their receptions. These were 
delightful occasions, which those of us who attended 
from Boston will never forget. We looked at the various 
things of interest under the many microscopes, we 
lingered in the Browning room, we talked with the girlish 
but self-poised president, who, charming in conversation, 
could tell an incident as interestingly as she told the bear- 
story to the small Freemans in the life on the farm. 

Many honors came to the young, eloquent president. 
In 1882 she was made Doctor of Philosophy by Michigan 
University; in 1887, Doctor of Letters by Columbia 
University, and Doctor of Laws by Union University, 
in 1896. 

In 1884 she made her first journey to England, with 
her father, she having been selected by General Eaton, 
one of three American delegates to the International Con¬ 
ference on Education, where she spoke most acceptably 
on the health of women in colleges, and upon other topics. 
The conference was held in London, Cardinal Manning 
presiding. After this she spent a few delightful weeks at 
the English Lakes. 

In December, 1887, when she was thirty-two she was 
married to Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard 
University, a man of profound scholarship, an author, 
and in every way fitted to make her life happy. He 
was thirteen years her senior. He met Miss Freeman, 
as he says in his delightful life of the distinguished 
teacher, in 1884, at the house of Professor Horsford in 
Cambridge. The friendship soon grew into earnest 
affection. The loss to Wellesley College seemed incalcu- 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


247 


lable, but thousands rejoiced to see her lay aside her hard 
work, and rest in an ideal home, in an ideal companion¬ 
ship. Not that she ever could or did give up her work. 
It simply grew broader when freed from great and wear¬ 
ing responsibilities. 

In June of the following year, 1888, Mr. and Mrs. 
Palmer went abroad for fifteen months, that year being 
his Sabbatical year granted by Harvard each seventh 
year, when a professor may have half pay and rest, how 
and where he chooses. These months were full of com¬ 
fort and peace, away from constant interruptions and un¬ 
ceasing calls on heart and brain from the outside world. 
They usually took furnished rooms, whether in Germany, 
France, Italy, or Greece, and visited art galleries, 
museums, and parks, and enjoyed natural scenery to 
their hearts’ content. The contrast from the struggles of 
early life made these restful months all the more delight¬ 
ful. It had paid to economize, to study hard, to help 
others over the rough places, and now to be helped in re¬ 
turn. 

Mrs. Palmer especially loved Venice, and Grasmere in 
English Lakes. At Tubingen, Germany, where Pro¬ 
fessor Palmer had studied in early life, they found much 
to enjoy. They traveled hundreds of miles on their 
bicycles. She writes from Italy: “We lie in the sand, 
we gather the blossoming flowers, the ripe oranges and 
olives, and are sure that it is June and not January. 
Anything like this I have never experienced before, and 
I find it unspeakably fascinating.” 

On their return, Mrs. Palmer found work, as usual, 
waiting for her. She loved her home and its domestic 
life, and made it a welcome place for hundreds. Emi¬ 
nently social, she met her old friends and made new ones. 
Professor Palmer says: “From the first she was our 
financial manager. Whatever money was received by 


248 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


either of us was put into her safe-keeping; and it was 
she who then appropriately distributed it to tradesmen, 
pockets, and banks. The skilful planning of how to 
extract the largest enjoyment from a given outlay was a 
game she delighted to play, and I think her favorite 
volume was her classified account book.” 

Pier variety and amount of work became very great. 
She was made a Trustee of Wellesley, in 1888, and her 
connection with the college was always very close. She 
was called here and there for public addresses, and her 
fluent speech, never written out, her magnetism, grace 
and dignity, and her charming personality, won for her 
eager listeners. If Professor Palmer promised an ad¬ 
dress and was unable to go, his wife would take his 
place, or he would take her’s. In 1889, Governor Ames 
appointed Mrs. Palmer a member of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Education, which position she held for the 
remaining thirteen years of her life. 

She was president for several years of the Woman’s 
Education Association of Boston, which constantly de¬ 
vised means for the higher education of women. They 
aided Radcliffe College, and desiring degrees from 
Harvard, raised an endowment of $100,000, Mrs. Palmer 
being chairman of the Committee. When the Harvard 
Corporation, by a majority of one, required Radcliffe to 
give its own degrees, the money was returned to the 
givers. She also aided in raising $110,000 for Wellesley. 

In 1891, Mrs. Palmer was appointed by the Governor 
one of five on a Board of Managers for Massachusetts, 
for the World’s Fair at Chicago. On this Board she did 
most efficient and valuable work. 

She was deeply interested in Foreign and Home Mis¬ 
sions as well, and was president of the Woman’s Home 
Missionary Association. She was also president of the 
International Institute for girls in Spain. 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


249 


Both Professor and Mrs. Palmer were members of the 
Equal Suffrage Association, believing “no doubt” as he 
says, “that eventually women will vote as naturally and 
with as little disturbance to the community as do men.” 
He quotes a letter from his wife to a friend: “How 
much time must a woman spend on her political duties? 
If she belongs to the well-to-do class and hires others to 
do her domestic work, she has time for whatever interests 
her most—only let her interests be noble. If she does her 
own house work, she can take ten minutes to stop on her 
way to market for voting once or twice a year. She can 
find half an hour a day for newspapers and other means 
of information. She can talk with her family and 
friends about what she reads. Study of the vital 
questions of our government would make them better 
comrades to their husbands and friends, better guides to 
their sons, and more interesting and valuable members of 
society. Women have more leisure than men; they are 
less tied to hours of routine; they usually have more 
years of school training, and in this country their con¬ 
science and loyalty compare favorably with men’s.” 

Mrs. Palmer labored among the poor, helped in the 
“No-license” campaigns for Cambridge, and was willing 
to aid everybody who needed advice or help. Professor 
Palmer wittily says: “I think she did not know a bore 
when she saw him—and she saw him under every guise. 
Sometimes he appeared as the crazy schemer, anxious to 
hitch his rickety wagon to her auspicious star. . . . These 
direct contacts with persons through calls and letters she 
valued extremely; and large as was the draft they made 
on her time, they were probably worth while.” 

Chicago University, founded in 1892, urged both Mr. 
and Mrs. Palmer to accept, one the Professorship of 
Philosophy, the other of History and Dean of Women. 
Though the salary offered was three times what was then 


250 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


received at Harvard, and though both believed in co-edu¬ 
cation, they declined the offer. 

President Harper finally prevailed upon Mrs. Palmer 
to become Dean of Women, without teaching, with no 
obligation to reside in Chicago for more than twelve 
weeks each year. After three years, she resigned in 
June, 1895, an d went to Europe, but always retained the 
warmest interest in the University. 

When both Professor Palmer and his wife were tired 
of constant work, they hastened to his country home at 
Boxford, twenty-five miles north from Boston, and six 
miles from the sea, where his family had lived for eight 
generations, since the Indians owned the farm. Here 
among the flowers, and pines and brooks and woodland, 
both were supremely happy. They read together and 
studied, and wrote and rested. She wrote many poems 
here, some religious, some on nature, and some showing 
her happy married life. They loved the birds and the 
wild flowers. “It made a kind of festival,” writes Pro¬ 
fessor Palmer “when I brought her the first columbine, 
the first wild rose, the first cardinal, or the first blue 
gentian.” 

It seemed a hard thing that this idyllic life should be 
broken; that Boxford should have but the memory of 
one who seemed a part of its sunshine, and the song of 
its birds. But it came suddenly. In 1902 the Sabbatical 
year was due Professor Palmer. Though hating to leave 
Boxford, they sailed the first of October, spending a lit¬ 
tle time at the English Lakes, and then about the first of 
November going to Paris. During this month Mrs. 
Palmer suffered from seeming indigestion. No one 
thought of danger until five days before her death. An 
operation was decided upon, and brave and calm, know¬ 
ing that it would probably prove fatal, she was carried to 
the hospital on Wednesday forenoon, and on Saturday 


ALICE FREEMAN PALMER 


251 


morning, December 6, 1902, fully conscious to the end, 
passed gently into the last sleep. Only forty-seven and 
so much accomplished! 

Thousands were saddened when the brief, noble life 
ended. Wellesley erected in her college chapel an ex¬ 
quisite monument by Daniel Chester French. The col¬ 
lege has also a full-length portrait painted by Abbott 
Thayer in 1890, and a bust by Anne Whitney, carved in 
1892. Chicago University placed a chime of bells in 
Mitchell tower to honor the sweet-voiced leader. There 
are ten bells, the largest weighing over two thousand 
pounds. The Collegiate Alumnae Association founded a 
fellowship in her name, and Wellesley College did like¬ 
wise. Mrs. Durant had already, in 1888, erected 
Freeman College. 

One of the chiefest and most lasting monuments to 
Alice Freeman Palmer is the loving and able portrayal by 
her husband, of her beautiful life. 


CLARA BARTON 


The renowned old county of Worcester, Massachu¬ 
setts, has long been famous for its production of marvel¬ 
ous “doers.” Here was given to the world the inventors 
of the sewing machine and the cotton gin; Morton, the 
man who discovered ether; Slater, the great loom and 
spindle maker who revolutionized the mills of the world; 
Dorothea Dix, the founder of insane asylums, Bancroft, 
the historian; John B. Gough, the great temperance ora¬ 
tor; Edward Everett Hale, Luther Burbank, and others 
equally well known to fame. And here, on Christmas 
Day, 1821, was born a little babe who was one day des¬ 
tined to become our nation’s heroine, Clara Barton, “the 
angel of the battlefield.” Every boy and girl in the land 
to-day who has rallied round the American Red Cross 
banner,—that banner whose white field symbolizes its 
founder’s purity and whose deep red cross blazons anew 
her bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice—knows some¬ 
thing of the life and work of Clara Barton, and would 
fain know more. She was one of the world’s greatest 
humanitarians, and her life story is intertwined with 
national and international history. 

Her farmer father served on the Western frontier, 
under Mad Anthony Wayne, side by side with William 
Henry Harrison—“Old Tippecanoe”—and Richard M. 
Johnson, then lieutenants in the army, and later president 
and vice-president of the United States. He was present 
at the slaying of Tecumseh, and marched home through 
the wilderness, meeting here and there in the field with a 

variety of adventure which ever held a breathless interest 

252 


CLARA BARTON 


253 


for little Clara. She was her father’s pet, the baby of the 
household. Seated upon his knee, she fought over and 
over again his battles and learned “every shade of 
military etiquette.” Here, too, she got her first ideas of 
the government, and it is recorded that when her sister 
Sally, ten years older, inquired of her privately what she 
thought the vice-president was like, she answered 
promptly: “A great green man about the size of our 
school-house!” 

Besides these two little girls, the family numbered an 
older sister Dorothy, seventeen when Clara was born; a 
grave older brother, Stephen, fifteen; and harum-scarum 
David, thirteen,—the “Buffalo Bill” who undertook 
Clara’s riding education, taking her to the pasture with 
him where they had the maddest kind of bare-backed 
gallops on their father’s high-bred Morgan colts. And 
this training served her well. “Sometimes in later 
years,” she tells us in The Story of My Childhood, 
“when I found myself on a strange horse, in a trooper’s 
saddle, flying for life or liberty in front of pursuit, I 
blessed those wild gallops among the beautiful colts.” 

Clara Barton never had a doll. Her mother was too 
staunch a Puritan to permit such nonsense. There were 
animal pets, and later flower and garden beds to tend, lit¬ 
tle household tasks, and sewing for the poor. “A level 
head” was what the mother sought to give her daughter. 
And there is plenty of proof that she succeeded, though 
she often said that among all the girl’s other teachers she 
had little chance. Certain it is that her training stood 
Clara in good stead when she had to be a “mother to an 
army and a little sister to the soldiers.” Then, as she 
herself has said, she “became a notable housekeeper, if 
that might be said of one who had no house to keep, but 
lived in fields and woods and tents and wagons with all 

out-of-doors for a cooking range, mother earth for a 

* 


2 54 


CLARA BARTON 


kitchen hearth, and the winds of heaven for a chimney. 
At Antietam, so the story runs, a dying soldier longed for 
a custard pie, “one crinkly around the edges,” just to re¬ 
mind him of home. The great nurse listened to the plea 
with swimming eyes, and a few moments later, herself 
made the pie, with quick supple fingers that stamped the 
“crinkly edges” with a touch which none but one skilled 
in the art could have achieved. 

Clara’s brothers and sisters were a family of school 
teachers. “All took charge of me, all educated me,” she 
once said, “each according to his personal taste.” She 
seemed not to be able to remember when she could not 
read. In spelling, arithmetic and geography, too, she had 
made some progress before the winter of her seventh 
birthday, when Stephen hoisted her on his broad 
shoulders and carried her off to the district school. Here 
for one year a stranger was her teacher; thereafter 
Stephen taught the school in the winters, and one or the 
other of her sisters had it in the summers, until Clara 
left for the High School at Oxford. 

When she was eight years old, Clara’s father moved 
his family down the mile-long slope to what shortly 
proved a place of enchantment for the child. “Here the 
woman who later was to cross the pontoon bridge at 
Fredericksburg under fire and with skirt shot away, 
learned to cross the winding river on teetering logs at its 
most dangerous depth. Later, when this sport had 
become tame, she would go to the mill and ride out on the 
saw carriage twenty feet above the stream and be pulled 
back on the returning log.” 1 

Her first opportunity to show the talent which was 
later to make her the greatest of war nurses and the 
founder of the Red Cross in America came the summer 
she was eleven years old. Her brother David was 

1 The Life of Clara Barton, Epler. 


CLARA BARTON 


255 


seriously injured in a barn-raising. For two years 
Clara scarcely left his bedside night or day, “almost 
forgetting that there was an outside to the house.” And 
then her devotion and some new remedies conquered. 
David became as good as new, and the family now 
realized with a start that they had another patient on their 
hands. Clara was worn out—a mere bundle of nerves, 
and so little! In the two years she had not grown an 
inch nor gained a pound! Moreover, she had become a 
perfect little hermit. Always shy, she was now more 
sensitive and bashful than ever, and preferred nothing 
so much as to be let alone. Sally, to divert her sister’s 
mind from herself, started her on a stiff course of Scotch 
and English poetry, which she made so interesting that 
the little maid was captivated at once. While David, him¬ 
self delighting in the open, coaxed Clara out with him on 
every possible pretext. 

To encourage horseback riding, of which he felt 
there could not be too much, her father made the girl a 
present of a beautiful brown Morgan colt. Never was 
there a better-trained saddle-animal than Billy! “He 
could change from a single foot to a rack, pace, or trot,” 
and could get over the ground so swiftly that not a horse 
around could outdistance him. Such gallops as the two 
had together! Shortly there was a new light in Clara’s 
big dark eyes, and the tint of health in her dusky cheeks. 
But the two years of quiet housing had stunted her 
growth. She never grew any taller—five feet and three 
inches—and her figure was always slight and frail. Nor 
did she seem to conquer her timidness. 

“Perhaps a boarding school might help her,” the family 
concluded, and so she was sent away to an academy con¬ 
ducted by Colonel Stone, her first teacher, of whom she 
had always been very fond. But the experiment did not 
work. Clara was miserable among the one hundred and 


256 


CLARA BARTON 


fifty strange girls, and the idea had to be abandoned. 
But not so her education. Home instruction went on as 
before at the hands of Stephen and Sally. Later a new 
tutor was secured to round off the corners they had neg¬ 
lected, and after this Clara mustered up courage to at¬ 
tend a famous district academy that had opened up south 
of North Oxford, her home town. Here among other ad¬ 
vanced studies she took up philosophy, chemistry, and 
Latin, and here, best of all, she discovered the tonic which 
she felt would henceforth banish worry and breakdown. 
It was Work! She needed to be kept too busy to think 
of self. She proposed to enter the cloth mills managed 
by her brother, and learn to master the flying shuttle. 
But to this her mother strenuously objected, and the 
matter would have been dropped had not Stephen taken 
up the cudgels. 

“We have always kept Clara reined in too tightly,” he 
declared. “A few years ago she wanted to learn to 
dance; this was considered too frivolous and improper; 
now she wants to work. She needs some outlet for her 
energies, and I, for one, am willing to let her try her skill 
at the loom.” 

And to Clara’s delight matters were finally arranged. 
But she was not long permitted to enjoy her new labors. 
Inside of two weeks the mills burned down, and her oc¬ 
cupation was gone. What next should she do? 

“Let her teach school,” said a friend of the family. 
“Nothing will help her to overcome her sensitiveness and 
timidity more than responsibility for others.” 

And Clara finally consented to make the attempt. At 
fifteen, she “let down her skirts and put up her hair,” 
and in May set out to walk to her first school. As was 
to be expected from a family of teachers, she was a suc¬ 
cess from the very beginning. Eighteen years, one-fifth 
of her life, Miss Barton spent in the school-room, ten 



CLARA BARTON 


























CLARA BARTON 


257 


years being given to a school which she herself estab¬ 
lished among the humming factories in North Oxford. 
While here she found time also to keep her brother 
Stephen's mill books, and to read and study extensively. 
Daily, as her horizon broadened, Miss Barton felt the 
need of a better education, and finally she decided, as she 
said, “to break away from her long shackles” and enter 
the Clinton Liberal Institute, in New York State, one of 
the best known girls’ seminaries. There were no colleges 
open to girls in those days. Not yet had the blessed 
labors of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
Mary Lyon, and Elizabeth Blackwell reached their pin¬ 
nacle of success. “Every girl to-day should bless these 
pioneer women in their daily prayers,” Miss Barton once 
said. She got all the Institute could give her, and then 
began to look about for a field of action. Her mother 
was now dead, the home was broken up, and she was free 
to go where she pleased. Fortune took her to Hights- 
town, New Jersey. As yet there were no public schools 
in this State, and prejudice against them ran high—“free 
schools for paupers” they were styled, and the few at¬ 
tempts to start such free schools had ended in dismal fail¬ 
ure. Bordentown, a nearby village, had some two hun¬ 
dred children in school, the remaining four hundred ran 
wild, and Clara Barton’s great heart yearned over them. 
She determined to go to this place, and herself open a 
public school. 

“Give me a building,” she said to the town authorities, 
“and I will teach three months. If at the end of that 
time the school is not an established success, you need not 
pay me a cent.” 

School began in a tumble-down, ramshacklety build¬ 
ing, with six bright-faced, harum-scarum boys for pupils. 
Not a mother would trust her girls in such a place 1 But 
Clara Barton understood boys, and in short, as she wrote 


258 


CLARA BARTON 


later, “Teaching was my trade. We got on well to¬ 
gether. In five weeks our building was too small. In a 
year, I stood in a new building, built for me at a cost of 
$4000, and my six pupils had grown to six hundred. . . . 
At length, broken in strength, with a complete loss of 
voice, I was compelled to leave them. A few years later 
I found them all over the Southern fields standing firmly 
behind their muskets or lying in their blood; but every 
one remembered. They remember to-day, those pupils; 
gray-haired men of business all over the land and seas, 
their letters come faithfully to my table.” 

How hard it was for Miss Barton to leave her chosen 
field, only those who have known and loved the work as 
she did will understand. But with her voice gone and 
her health undermined, it was evident that she must seek 
elsewhere for occupation. And she must work or die, 
that she had decided long ago! What could she do? 
Some work with her hands, that was evident. As she 
wrote with great legibility and had a considerable knowl¬ 
edge of bookkeeping, she decided to go to Washington 
and look for a “clerkship.” As Washington to her 
meant the Government, what more natural than that she 
should seek a Government position? Through the in¬ 
fluence of the Representative from Massachusetts, she re¬ 
ceived an appointment in the Department of the Interior, 
during Franklin Pierce’s administration, and was the first 
woman to be employed by the Government. Shortly she 
held a confidential desk in the Patent Office, at a salary 
of $1400 per year. Here she stayed until after the elec¬ 
tion of President Buchanan, in 1856, when the depart¬ 
ments were swept clean of every one who held anti-slav¬ 
ery sympathies. But so well did she understand her busi¬ 
ness, and in such a muddle did the affairs she had con¬ 
trolled get, that at the end of two years she was recalled. 

Now the war clouds were fast thickening and settling 


CLARA BARTON 


259 

in a pall over Washington. Buchanan, anxious to pacify 
every one, satisfied none. Everywhere was division of 
opinion and indecision. But not so with Clara Barton. 
Accustomed always to think clearly and to reason things 
out for herself, her mind was already made up. She 
knew just where she stood, and in a letter written to her 
niece, just after the firing on Fort Sumter, she said: 
“l think the city will shortly be attacked. If it must be, 
let it come, and when there is no longer a soldier’s arm 
to raise the Stars and Stripes above our capitol, may God 
give strength to mine. ,, 

On April 15, 1861, Massachusetts responded to Lin¬ 
coln’s call for 75,000 troops by offering four regiments; 
one of these, the sixth set off at once for Washington, 
/and in spite of mob opposition arrived in time to save 
the Nation’s capital from the hands of the enemy. As 
the men detrained, Clara Barton was there to receive 
them! For the boys of the sixth were largely her own 
early friends and schoolmates, and she was bursting with 
pride and gratitude for their swift response. Now for 
the first time she bound up war wounds, and saw blood 
which had been shed in combat. Nor did it set her reel¬ 
ing, sick and faint, as had the sight of even the blood from 
a chicken in her early girlhood days. When their supply 
of handkerchiefs was exhausted, Miss Barton and her 
helpers rushed to her home—the comfortable retreat of 
one large room and several smaller ones which she kept in 
a lodging house—and tore up her sheets for bandages, 
towels, handkerchiefs, and the like. Nor did she stop 
there. The next day the amazed church-goers met her 
leading a procession of five husky negro porters carrying 
hampers containing comforts for “her soldiers,” and in 
the Senate chamber, where they had gathered, she spread 
a feast before them and contributed to their further enter¬ 
tainment by reading the home news to them from the 


260 


CLARA BARTON 


Worcester Spy. As she read, an inspiration came to her. 
This bore fruit in an announcement in the next issue of 
the Spy. It stated the need of various supplies for the 
valiant Sixth, and added that Clara Barton would be glad 
to receive any contributions in money or goods for their 
relief. How nobly Worcester responded! And the 
other cities and towns of Massachusetts were not slow 
in following; so that presently Miss Barton’s rooms were 
filled and overflowing, and a warehouse nearby was hired. 

Now indeed Clara Barton had work in plenty. Fol¬ 
lowing the Peninsular Campaign, when the wounded 
came pouring in from the swamps of Chickahominy, 
Clara Barton met them at the wharf. As she washed 
those loathsome, running sores, and did all she could with 
first-aid methods, while the poor fellows waited in the 
burning hot sun for the slow-moving ambulances to take 
them to the hospitals, her heart overflowed with pity. So 
much of this awful suffering could have been relieved by 
quick attention on the field. Here were her early com¬ 
rades and later her schoolboys of both Massachusetts 
and New Jersey. It was terrible that there was no one 
to go to them! Could she do it? Aye! But would 
the people be scandalized and her reputation gone, if she 
tried it? It would be considered right while she minis¬ 
tered to those who knew and loved her. But no good 
woman was to be found unprotected among rough and 
strange soldiers; and there were, moreover, strict army 
regulations which she must needs overcome. Should 
she try it ? 

It was her brave old soldier father who settled the ques¬ 
tion from his death-bed. “Go, my child, if duty calls 
you,” he said. “I know soldiers, not a man but will re¬ 
spect and honor you for your errand of mercy.” 

A few months longer Clara Barton worked and waited, 


CLARA BARTON 


261 


caring for the wreckage from the opening battles of the 
Army of the Potomac, and with each arrival of the 
wounded her purpose grew. She must go to the Front! 
Finally came the eight thousand wounded and bleeding 
sufferers, with their heart-rending tales, from the line of 
McClellan’s seven days’ retreat, and the noble woman 
could wait no longer. Determining to take no rebuff, she 
finally won her way to Assistant Quartermaster-General 
Rucker, and laid her plans before him. Tears welled in 
this great-hearted man’s eyes, as he listened to the plea 
of the slender little woman, and he blessed her with a 
sympathy and insight that sent her flying to get her stores 
loaded. For at last she had all the authority necessary! 
She was to be not only the first woman on the field, but 
the first person to take organized aid where it was most 
needed. 

She arrived the day after the battle of Cedar Mountain, 
and never was human succor more welcome. For five 
days and nights, with only three hours’ sleep, she worked 
like a Spartan, and then came the news of the terrible 
casualties on the old Bull Run field. Instantly Miss Bar¬ 
ton left for the scene in a rude freight car, arriving about 
10 o’clock Sunday morning, in the midst of acres and 
acres of wounded, lying sore and famishing on beds of 
hay. A terrible sight it was! Yet within fifteen min¬ 
utes, Miss Barton and her helpers had coffee and hot 
soup ready and had begun on their mission of mercy. 

“I never realized until that day how little a human 
being could be grateful for,” said Miss Barton later. “A 
bit of bread sufficient to cover a gold eagle was worth 
more than the gold itself. And how we watched and 
pleaded and cautioned, lest some unwary searcher fire the 
hay with his candle, as we worked and wept that night! 
Flow we put socks and slippers upon cold damp feet, 


262 


CLARA BARTON 


wrapped blankets and quilts about them, and when we 
had no longer these to give, how we covered them in the 
hay and left them to their rest!” 

At daylight on Monday, the trains began to arrive for 
the wounded, but as they left filled, no appreciable va¬ 
cancy showed among those sodden beds; for wagons were 
even yet steadily arriving with poor sufferers who had 
lain for three days unfed and unattended on the battle¬ 
field. It was impossible to dress a third of the wounds, 
the enemy hovered in the hills, any moment the firing 
might begin, and the place must be evacuated as speedily 
as possible. Miss Barton knew that if these last poor 
fellows were put on the trains without food, a large num¬ 
ber could not live to reach Washington. So she sought 
out the commanding officers and begged that the wagons 
might pause at a certain point. Thereafter she made it 
her business to feed with her own hands each new arrival 
until he expressed himself satisfied. 

All day the clouds had been gathering black and murky, 
and about four o’clock, when Miss Barton who had not 
paused to taste food since Saturday noon, now found a 
moment for this purpose, “God’s artillery and man’s” 
broke out together in a fearful crash. “Chantilly with 
all its darkness and horrors had opened in the rear.” 
Imagine what it meant to keep on in that pouring flood, 
as darkness descended, amid lightnings and gun flashes 
and the deafening noise of the volleys creeping nearer and 
nearer! But somehow Miss Barton clung, administering 
such food as she had left—army crackers, pounded to 
crumbs, and stirred into a mixture of sweetened wine, 
whiskey and water. “But whether,” as she said, “it 
should have been classed as food, or, like the Widow 
Bedott’s cabbage, as a delightful beverage, it would puzzle 
an epicure to determine.” Nor did it matter, so long as 


CLARA BARTON 263 

it imparted strength and comfort, and put heart into the 
poor fellows to face the jolting journey ahead. 

At last, the wagons ceased to come, and the last train 
left, clearing the fields, but the faithful nurse dared not 
leave, for daylight would bring more wounded. One of 
her two women helpers had gone into Washington with a 
train of desperate sufferers, the other, worn out, lay sleep¬ 
ing on a pile of boxes. Miss Barton could find no place 
for herself, and had not strength enough left to make one. 
Suddenly she remembered that a little tent had been 
pitched for her a few rods away on the hillside. Its 
gleaming whiteness offered a safe shelter from trampling 
beasts and wagons, and she recalled that the grass there 
was long. Could she reach it? Never did she forget 
that attempt. How many times she fell from sheer ex¬ 
haustion, to rise again presently and struggle onward until 
the welcome grasp of the canvas was in her hand, and 
then she found to her dismay a little brook rushing forth 
to meet her! 

No further effort was possible. Stumbling across the 
water, she half-lay, half-propped herself on her arm on 
the farther side, where the ground was higher, and telling 
herself that she dare not sink down or the water would 
run in her ears, she drifted off to sleep! For two hours 
only—then the rumbling of the incoming wagons roused 
her, and she saw that tired nature had had its way. She 
lay flat on the ground, and oh, how she had rested! 
Springing up and wringing the water from her skirts, she 
went forth to those awful loads, filled alike with the 
wounded, the dying and the dead. 

Thus until the plaintive wail of a fife and the muffled 
drum sounded retreat, and the enemy’s cavalry skirting 
the hills warned them that they must leave or be taken 
prisoners. Yet it was impossible to desert the wounded, 


264 


CLARA BARTON 


and with the heart of desperation they struggled on. 
Finally an officer burst upon the scene. 

“Miss Barton, can you ride?” he demanded, breath¬ 
lessly. She could indeed, thanks to David and those 
wild, irrepressible Morgan colts. “Then you are safe for 
another hour,” he cried. A blessed hour! All too 
quickly passed, but it served to put the last wounded 
men on the train. Then, again came the officer. “Try 
the train,” he ordered briefly. “It will get you through, 
unless they have taken the bridge. In that case, I shall 
be on hand with a horse, and you must take your chances 
with the army.” But the bridge was safe; midnight 
found the nation’s heroine in Washington, and ready for 
the next call of duty. 

So it was with variations on through the four years of 
war. In May, 1864, the government honored Miss 
Barton by creating for her the Department of Nurses, to 
be stationed at City Point, Virginia, and making her 
superintendent, feeling that such an act would not only 
show the country’s appreciation, but give her sufficient 
authority to carry out her ideas. All the offices in the 
world, however, could not keep Miss Barton away from 
the firing line. And there she stayed until after the siege 
of Petersburg. Then, with the close of the war, came 
the burden of the missing men, and the wail of the grief- 
stricken multitude seeking them pressed close to her heart. 
For four years she did her best to find missing ones, 
using some $8,000 of her own means, until the Govern¬ 
ment at length awoke to the importance of what she was 
doing, and voted $15,000 to reimburse her funds and to 
aid in the further search. 

All over the country were people who wanted to know 
the real facts of the war, and at length Miss Barton went 
upon the lecture platform, as the best means of answer¬ 
ing them. Here she was an unbounded success, but the 


CLARA BARTON 


265 


hardships of this tour, coupled with those years of unshel¬ 
tered days and nights, the unending fatigue and lack of 
proper food, brought a heavy toll. Her voice failed, as 
it had long before when she was forced to leave the 
schoolroom, and she became a victim of nervous prostra¬ 
tion. All winter she lay helpless in Washington, and then 
in the spring her doctor ordered her off to Europe to 
rest. 

Two delightful weeks she had in Bonny Scotland, 
a day or two in Paris, a brief trip across southern France, 
and then Switzerland, where she was to rest for three 
years, according to home verdict. Rest! In less than a 
month after her arrival in Geneva, she was visited by the 
“International Committee for the Relief of the Wounded 
in War.” Why was it that the United States had all 
along refused to join this humane movement? 

Miss Barton was amazed. She had never heard of the 
Commission, and she was sensible enough to realize that 
America as a people never had either! Twenty-two 
nations were on the roll; in short not a civilized people 
in the world but ourselves was missing! Miss Barton’s 
national pride was ashamed and humiliated. She went 
over the nine articles of the Treaty, the work of the 
World’s Red Cross Convention, of 1864. Surely it was 
such a document as America should be proud and glad to 
sign! And then and there she registered a determination 
to see that this was done. But some months were to 
elapse before opportunity offered. The Franco-Prussian 
War was at hand, and presently the Grand Duchess of 
Baden and the Red Cross societies had drawn Miss 
Barton into their campaign of relief. 

Of course, she went into it with her whole soul, and 
somehow had strength to carry on, but in the end her 
poor eyes, blinded by the stinging cannon smoke of two 
wars, gave way, and her nerves with them. Weary 


266 


CLARA BARTON 


months of illness followed, many of them with bandaged 
eyes in a darkened room, and it was not until October, 
1873, that Miss Barton landed on home soil, filled with 
her strong determination to establish the American 
National Red Cross. To this end, she proposed to settle 
on Capitol Hill to be near the seat of her activities, but 
her physician vetoed this with his most emphatic No. 
More months of illness and utter prostration followed 
the death of her beloved sister Sally, and she was forced 
to put in ten years in a sanitarium at Dansville, New 
York. But these were not altogether idle years. She 
was busy with her pen preparing the public mind for the 
advent of her Red Cross campaign. 

With the election of Garfield, Miss Barton gathered 
hope. She had stood side by side with him in the rain of 
shell for their country’s cause, and she felt that he 
would understand. Nor was she disappointed. He had 
followed the path of her pen, and his whole noble soul 
was fired with the glory of Red Cross work. When she 
went to see him, he called in Secretary Blaine and after 
the three had gone fully into the details of the plan, the 
Secretary himself enthusiastically agreed to lay it before 
the cabinet. Here two more men—William Windom 
and Robert T. Lincoln—became its champions, and the 
“American Association of the Red Cross” presently 
came into being, with a constitution drafted by the Hon. 
William Lawrence, of Ohio, the First Comptroller of 
the Treasury of the United States. 

All along, the principal argument against a Red Cross 
for America was that we had no wars, nor were we likely 
to have any. Miss Barton pointed out that granting 
and hoping this, we were not proof against national dis¬ 
asters,—floods, fire, famine, and plagues: and here the 
Red Cross would be invaluable. The new constitution 


CLARA BARTON 


267 

made a feature of this, and Garfield promised to recom¬ 
mend the cause in his message. That message alas! was 
never written. Garfield fell by an assassin’s bullet. But 
President Arthur came valiantly to the rescue, and 
promptly carried out all of his predecessor’s promises. 

At length, thanks to Miss Barton’s untiring perse¬ 
verance, the signature of the United States was affixed 
to the World’s Treaty, America became a member of the 
International Red Cross, and the fact, owing to Miss 
Barton’s cable, was proclaimed by bonfires in the streets 
of Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. At home, 
the intelligence had only a four-line announcement in the 
Congressional report of the day’s doings in the Washing¬ 
ton Evening Star! Thus was the American Red Cross 
“left in obscurity to make its own way and live its own 
hard life.” But, with Miss Barton as its president, it 
could not fail. For a quarter of a century she upheld its 
banner in the field through flood and fire, cyclone, famine, 
epidemics, and the vicissitudes of the Cuban War, and 
this without a falter, though she was sixty-one years of 
age when she began—an age when most women, 
especially those with delicate health, consider their work¬ 
ing days over and retire to the chimney corner. 

Clara Barton was the best known national and inter¬ 
national figure of her time—for she made several trips 
across the water in the interests of the Red Cross. She 
numbered five of our presidents—Lincoln, Grant, 
Garfield, Arthur and McKinley—as well as a large 
number of our greatest statesmen, among her closest 
friends. Kings, emperors, dukes, Imperial chancellors, 
and European diplomats of the first rank knew and 
honored her—nay more, they waited with respect and 
deference for her wise judgment. At her death, which 
occurred April 12, 1912, newspapers throughout the 


268 


CLARA BARTON 


length and breadth of the land vied with one another in 
their words of love, honor and esteem. 

But her proudest monument, and the one which will 
endure for all time, is the American Red Cross. 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


Susan B. Anthony has many times been called the 
“Moses” of the movement for Woman’s Rights. She 
led her sex out of the Wilderness of Utter Subjection to 
the very gates of the Promised Land, and there, like the 
Great Leader, died within sight of the prize. But there 
can be no doubt that to her, more than to any other of 
the noble women who shared her work, is due the enviable 
position of the American women in the world to-day. 
No woman has done so much for other women as she did, 
and when the recording angel is asked for the names of 
those who loved their fellow-women best, her name will 
lead all the rest. “No wrong under which women 
suffered was too great for her to dare attack it, no in¬ 
justice too small to enlist her pity and her attempt to 
remedy it.” 

To Susan B. Anthony, herself an old maid, is due the 
entire remodeling of the marriage law, and the develop¬ 
ment of the modern axiom that “what is the husband’s is 
also the wife’s—what is the wife’s is her own.” She 
found women almost without recognition before the 
law—with no property rights, not even the control of 
their own wages and the custody of their own children; 
she left them safeguarded in this respect, and in four 
states in the Union women had equal voice with men in 
making the laws that govern them. She found the doors 
of nearly all avenues of learning closed to women, and the 
woman who desired an education hounded as a freak and 
a menace to “civilization.” She left the doors of all 

seats of learning wide open to women, and parents eager 

269 




270 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


to educate both sons and daughters alike. She found 
only three vocations for the woman forced to earn her 
own bread: “hired girl,” mill-hand, and school teacher. 
She left no bounds set to a woman’s achievements save 
those made by her own lack of energy or ability. 

To be sure, Miss Anthony did not accomplish all these 
herculean efforts alone and single-handed, but she was 
head and front of the great movement for Woman’s 
Emancipation, and with the meeting of the first Woman’s 
Rights convention, in 1848, the status of women began 
to ascend. But it was not easy! For more than sixty 
years “Aunt Susan’s” life was one of constant battle, and 
she died fighting, with her face bravely turned to the last 
of the foe—those who opposed the ballot for women. 
What she endured in the earliest years—ridicule, cat-call¬ 
ing, vegetable-throwing, all manner of scorn and abuse— 
seems impossible to us now in the warmth of our enlight¬ 
ened outlook. “It was my good fortune,” said Dorothy 
Dix, in the New York Evening Journal, on the occasion 
of the death of Miss Anthony, “to once stand beside the 
dear old liberator when an audience composed of the 
most brilliant and distinguished people of a big city, rose 
and cheered her until they were hoarse, and pelted her 
with roses until the frail figure in its black silk dress, 
and with its white silk shawl slipping from the shoulders, 
was standing almost knee-deep in flowers. When the 
applause had died away and the audience gone, she turned 
to me and with a smile that trembled between a laugh and 
a tear, she said, ‘Time brings strange changes. In this 
very city that has pelted me with roses I have been pelted 
with rotten eggs for saying the very things that I have 
said to-night.’ ” 

Susan Brownell Anthony was born in the Berkshire 
Hills, February 15, 1820,—a region famous for its 
loveliness of scenery, purity of air, and the birthplace of 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


271 


noted people, among these being William Cullen Bryant, 
Maria Sedgewick, the Goodale sisters, Cyrus W. Field, 
Jonathan Edwards, Mark and Albert Hopkins, and many 
others in a list too long for quoting. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, whose grandfather was a Berkshire man, once 
wrote: “Berkshire has produced a race which, for inde¬ 
pendent thought, daring schemes and achievements that 
have had world-wide consequences, has not been sur¬ 
passed. We claim, also, that more of those first things 
that draw the chariot of progress forward so that people 
can see that it has moved, have been planned and executed 
by the inhabitants of the nine-hundred and fifty square 
miles that constitute the territory of Berkshire, than can 
be credited to any other tract of equal extent in the United 
States.” 

And one of the first in these ranks was Susan B. 
Anthony! She was the second child of a love-match, 
the courtship of her father and mother being a delightful 
New England romance. Daniel Anthony, her father, 
was a Quaker school teacher, and Lucy Read, her mother, 
was his most brilliant and beautiful pupil. The Reads 
were Baptists and the Quakers were not permitted to 
“marry out of meeting.” Moreover, Lucy Read had 
been brought up most liberally; she loved to dance and to 
wear pretty clothes, and above all to sing—a thing which 
was especially frowned upon by the sober, straight-laced 
Friends. Could she give up all these for her lover? 
For, of course, in those days, no one had ever dreamed 
of a husband adapting himself to his wife’s views! 

Shortly after the marriage, for love triumphed then as 
now, a committee of Friends waited upon Daniel, and 
Lucy always laughingly declared that to save himself he 
told them that he was sorry he had married her! To 
this the husband always replied quickly: “No, indeed. I 
told them that I was sorry that in order to marry the 


272 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


woman I loved best, I had to violate a rule of the religious 
society I revered most!” 

Somehow this excuse appeased the elders. The 
Anthonys had ever stood strong in their midst, and David 
was a most likely young man. Moreover, they soon 
learned to love Lucy, for the young wife quickly adapted 
herself to the Friends, though she never used the “plain 
language” or wore the Quaker garb, and she would sing 
to her babies, which in truth delighted her Quaker rela¬ 
tives as much as it did her husband, and they only asked 
her gently why she did it. 

A busy work-a-day life was Lucy Anthony’s. She was 
the mother of eight children, and for many years she not 
only did all the cooking, washing and ironing for her own 
brood, but boarded and “did” for anywhere from eight 
to a dozen of her husband’s factory hands as well, and 
this without complaint, and entirely as a matter-of 
course. It was the way of those days! Her spare time, 
and how little this must have been during her early mar¬ 
ried life, was given to reading. She loved history, 
Dickens and Scott, knew by heart “The Lady of the 
Lake,” and had read the Bible from cover to cover many 
times. In old age, when her mind wandered, she talked 
with characters she had known in books, as of persons 
she had known in youth. Always her highest interest 
was in her home; she loved to have her house swept and 
garnished, and to provide a bountiful table; and her 
husband and children were ever sure of her affectionate 
interest in everything that interested them. “Do not 
mind me,” she often said to Susan, in her last days, when 
that affectionate daughter would have tarried by her side, 
“Go, and do all the good you can!” 

Little Susan was a remarkably bright and intelligent 
child. She learned her letters, and to pick out a few 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


273 


words, at the age of three, while she was staying at 
Grandmother Read’s while the third baby was being 
made welcome at home. Susan, and indeed all the little 
Anthonys loved Grandma Read. They always visited 
her on the way both to and from school, and she 
never failed them in the matter of cookies, caraway cakes, 
maple sugar, cheese curd, and “left overs.” When Lucy 
Anthony remonstrated, as mothers will, little Susan re¬ 
plied quickly, “Why, mother, grandma’s potato peelings 
are better than your boiled dinners!” There was no 
treat to be compared with the “coffee” the good dame 
brewed for them—a beverage compounded by pouring 
boiling water, sweetened with maple-sugar, over the 
crust of brown rye or Italian bread. Another favorite 
was hasty pudding, heaped in a great cone, with its center 
hollowed out and filled with fresh butter and honey or 
maple syrup. 

Early in life, Susan learned to do her share of the day’s 
household tasks. On the occasion of a new baby, when 
the older sister Guelma—named for William Penn’s wife 
who was an Anthony connection—was fourteen, Susan 
twelve, and Hannah ten, the three little girls did all the 
work for the family and some ten or a dozen mill hands, 
cooking the food and carrying specimens frequently to 
the mother’s room to see if it was nicely prepared, as well 
as taking for her inspection the pails packed with the 
factory force’s dinner. When Susan went away to 
boarding-school, one of the severest reprimands she re¬ 
ceived, was for climbing up on the teacher’s table, with a 
broom in hand, to sweep the cobwebs out of the corner of 
the room; for alas! for her housewifely zeal, her heavy 
shoes crushed in the table top! There are many refer¬ 
ences in old letters to Susan’s “tip-top dinners,” and in 
her seventieth year, when she went to housekeeping in the 


274 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


old home at Rochester, New York, nothing delighted her 
more than to entertain a few friends at a meal which she 
herself had prepared. 

At fifteen, Susan began her career as a school teacher, 
receiving two dollars per week and the doubtful privilege 
of boarding around. And for fifteen years thereafter she 
was in the harness, gradually rising in her profession, and 
more often than not successfully succeeding men who had 
been dismal failures, and receiving in return only one- 
fourth of the salary. It roused her fighting blood. Why 
should not a woman receive as much as a man for work 
which she performed as well or better than he did? 
Then and there was born her desire to wage a campaign 
for equal pay for equal work. Moreover, as she so¬ 
journed in home after home, she came firmly to the con¬ 
clusion that she preferred a life of spinsterhood, and 
to those who sought to convince her otherwise, and they 
were many, for Susan was a handsome young woman, 
quick of speech and keen of wit, she turned an exceed¬ 
ingly cold shoulder. Married women had no life of their 
own, they were mere chattels, the slave to man’s desires. 
She used often to cite with a good deal of scorn an inci¬ 
dent which she declared was typical of woman’s sphere. 
Her cousin Margaret’s husband, in whose home she lived 
for two years, one day complained of a headache, and de¬ 
manded quiet and a darkened room. 

“Why,” said Margaret, quickly, speaking from the bur¬ 
den of her heavy household tasks combined with ill- 
health, “I have had the headache constantly for two 
weeks.” 

“But my headache is different,” returned her lord and 
master promptly, “mine is a real pain; yours is just the 
ache of consequence.” 

Poor, beloved cousin Margaret, however, gave her 
life because of this steady drain of “consequence!” 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


275 


Again, when her father failed in business, Susan saw 
his creditors claim not only the things her mother cher¬ 
ished as relics of her girlhood’s home, but her wedding 
presents, and even all but the barest necessities of the 
clothing of herself and children. Only the wit and re¬ 
sourcefulness of her brother, in holding the property left 
to Lucy Anthony by her father, kept it from falling into 
the maw. 

“We should have a law whereby what is the wife’s is 
her own,” concluded Susan, and she added this to her 
growing platform of woman’s rights. 

For years she and her school-teacher sister, Hannah, 
carefully saved every penny they could spare to aid their 
father in paying his debts, and he, honest, scrupulous 
Quaker that he was—though the Friends had now cast 
him off because his ever-broadening creed had brought 
him to attend the Unitarian Church—kept a record to 
the last cent, and gave them his notes, which he ultimately 
redeemed. When Susan found herself growing daily 
more dissatisfied with her limited round of usefulness 
in the schoolroom, and turned with longing to the causes 
of temperance and abolition, none gave her more encour¬ 
agement and hearty God-speed than her father. His 
mother and sister, Hannah Anthony, were “high seat” 
Quakers, the latter an eloquent and well-known preacher. 
He, himself, had long held that daughters should be 
trained for self-support as well as sons. He and his 
wife and daughter Mary attended the first Woman’s 
Rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, and signed the 
declaration demanding equal rights for women. Susan 
was away teaching, and it was at his own suggestion that 
she presently came home for a year and superintended the 
Rochester farm, where the family now lived, while he 
himself devoted all his energies to his insurance business 
in Syracuse. 


276 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


Anthony wanted his daughter to find herself, and that 
year, 1850, was in truth one of transition. The Anthony 
home teemed with liberal-minded visitors, and on Sun¬ 
days when her father was at home, frequently as many 
as twenty sat down to the bountiful dinner, pre¬ 
pared by Susan, under the divided agony of “being a 
successful cook, and not missing a word in the parlor!” 
Hither came Garrison, Channing, Frederick Douglass, 
Pillsbury, Phillips, and scores of others who had become 
leaders in abolition, temperance, and Woman’s Rights, 
and it was inevitable that Susan B. Anthony should be 
drawn into the reform movement. 

In midsummer, the Quaker girl went up to Seneca 
Falls to do what she could toward getting the new 
People’s College funded for girls as well as boys. She 
was the guest of Amelia Bloomer, the lady whose name, 
much to her own protest and chagrin, had been indelibly 
affixed to the “sensible costume” which she ctevised for 
women,, and which for a few ill-starred years featured 
more or less extensively in the Woman’s Rights cam¬ 
paign, being adopted by various of its fair champions. 
While Miss Anthony waited on a street corner with her 
hostess, who wore the bloomer costume, who should ap¬ 
pear but another lady in bloomers, Elizabeth Cady Stan¬ 
ton. The latter was at once taken with the sensible young 
lady in grey, “the very perfection of neatness and sobri¬ 
ety,” and she asked her at once to dinner in her own 
home to meet Lucy Stone and Horace Greeley, assuring 
Miss Anthony that the last-named spirited champion of 
young people would have more to do with the making of 
the constitution and by-laws than anybody. It was a 
memorable dinner, and the beginning of a life-long friend¬ 
ship among the three women, who were to do so much 
for the cause of their sex, and yet, as we are told in the 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


277 


Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, by Ida H. Harper, 
“There was certainly nothing formidable in the appear¬ 
ance of the trio : Miss Anthony, a quiet dignified Quaker 
girl; Mrs. Stanton, a plump, jolly, youthful matron, 
scarcely five feet high; and Lucy Stone a petite, soft- 
voiced young woman who seemed better fitted for caresses 
than for the hard buffetings of the world.” 

It is impossible in this brief sketch to follow Susan B. 
Anthony in her sixty-year battle for the right—a period 
longer than the lifetime of the average person. We can 
only say that she permitted nothing to daunt, or divert 
her. “This one thing I do,” was her watchword, and she 
did it with a sympathy, persistence, and business-like di¬ 
rectness which won victory and untold laurels in the end. 
Like Lincoln, her logic, tact and wit went hand in hand, 
and she could settle a discussion in almost as few words 
as he. On one occasion, Horace Greeley, it is said, took 
rather heated exception to her statement that woman’s 
rights could only be secured by the ballot: 

“See here, Miss Anthony,” he demanded, sharply, “If 
women vote, they must fight. Are you ready to do 
that?” 

“Yes, sir,” replied Aunt Susan, with vigor, “Just as 
you did in the late war,—at the end of a goose quill!” 

Miss Anthony was an exceedingly interesting speaker. 
She never soared to heights of rhetoric or flowers of 
fancy. What she had to say was briefly and plainly told 
in a simple fashion, which none could fail to understand, 
and those who heard her once were eager to do so again. 
Always she was frank and unpretentious—delightfully 
genuine and modest to a degree. Anna Howard Shaw 
in her Memoirs relates a little happening which shows the 
real Aunt Susan. One evening, shortly after the tide 
had begun to turn in her favor, the dear white-haired old 


SUSAN B. ANTHONY 


278 

lady walked out upon the platform, to the accompani¬ 
ments of deafening cheers, which she did not in the least 
understand. 

“What is it? What has happened?” she queried of 
Miss Shaw. 

“You happened, Aunt Susan,” returned her assistant, 
happily. 

“Nonsense,” said the sturdy old reformer, “they 
wouldn’t be cheering me! It’s the Cause!” 

And with that she herself joined in the cheers. Need¬ 
less to say, it brought down the house! 

Miss Anthony died at the ripe old age of eighty-six, 
March 13, 1906, and the press on both sides of the water 
united to do her honor. Death claimed her before the 
dream of her life, universal equal suffrage for men and 
women, was realized, but to-day that hour is very near. 
Humanity now knows the debt it owes to this staunch 
and courageous woman, who “dared to take the blows and 
bear the scorn that other women might be free.” 

Every college girl to-day, every woman working in her 
chosen sphere, every wife protected in person and prop¬ 
erty, every mother blessed with the custody of her chil¬ 
dren, owes these prized and sacred privileges to Susan B. 
Anthony beyond all others. “No one ever served a cause 
more unselfishly than Miss Anthony served the cause of 
woman,” says one of her dearest friends, in rendering 
her last tribute. “She had wonderful executive ability; 
she had untiring industry; great genius in many lines— 
all the things the world is most willing to pay for, and 
yet she gave them all and asked no reward for herself.” 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


More than threescore years ago, in the days when the 
old-time school exhibitions held their full and interesting 
sway, a young girl rose to ‘'speak a piece.” But, ere half 
a dozen lines had been given, she toppled over in a faint, 
completely overcome by stage fright. She was carried 
into the hall and revived, and might easily have escaped 
any further ordeal had she been so minded. But a strong 
mixture of spunk and vim had been handed down to Anna 
Howard Shaw from a long line of Scottish Highlanders, 
and all her fighting forces rose in arms against her cow¬ 
ardly heart. She would deliver that recitation or die in 
the attempt! So back she marched to the stage, and 
succeeded in acquitting herself very creditably. More¬ 
over, she thenceforward stuck so manfully to the guns, 
that she eventually developed a genius for public speaking, 
and such a tireless capacity for work, that she became a 
great American personality—an indefatigable worker 
in her chosen field as a minister of the Gospel, 
and on the lecture platform in the great causes of tem¬ 
perance and woman’s suffrage. 

Anna Howard Shaw was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
England, February 14, 1847. When she was very young 
her family emigrated to the new Land of Promise, and 
found a home presently at Lawrence, Massachusetts. 
And here, shortly after the courageous event recorded 
above, the call of “Westward Ho!” stimulated Mr. Shaw 
to a further emigration. With his eldest son, James, he 
went to the wilderness of northern Michigan and took 
up a claim of three hundred and sixty acres of land. 

This, he reasoned, would in time become a fine estate, a 

279 


28 o 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


place which his sons would inherit and later pass on to 
their sons—a vision always dear to the Englishman's 
heart. Staying only to build the bare walls and roof of 
a rude log cabin, and its huge fireplace of stone, he left 
James, a sturdy young man of twenty years, in charge, 
and returned to Massachusetts for his wife and four 
younger children; while he himself and two other sons 
remained behind to earn the money necessary to keep 
the family clothed and provisioned. 

Such a journey and a home-coming as that was for the 
semi-invalid, town-bred English wife and her brood! 
At Grand Rapids, Michigan, one hundred miles from the 
“new estate,” the railroad ended, and the rest of the way 
must be made by wagon. James Shaw was on hand to 
meet them with a dilapidated old prairie schooner and a 
raw-boned team,—a hired outfit, so disreputable-looking 
that twelve-year old Anna and her two elder sisters, 
Eleanor and Mary, were too proud to have any one think 
they were in any wise connected with it! So they started 
out on foot, their heads high in the air, and refused even 
to look at the lumbering old conveyance until the town 
had been left far behind. Then, when they would have 
entered the vehicle, there was alas! small room, so filled 
was it with bedding and provisions, not to mention a box 
of hungry, squealing little pigs! There was no furniture. 
This was to be made when the new home was reached. 

Seven days it took to make that one hundred miles, 
and every step of it James walked ahead, leading the team, 
while one or more of his sisters, and sometimes the small 
brother Harry, the baby of the family, eight years of age, 
took turns in keeping him company. To the youthful 
Shaws the expedition supplied no end of adventure, and 
it was of small moment to them whether they had shelter 
at night at the homes of the settlers where they stopped, 
or failed to find it. They were strong and hearty, and 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


281 


there was an abundance of food with them to supply 
their ravenous appetites, while the strange and unusual 
sights aroused their interest at every turn. Not once did 
they fathom what their delicate mother endured, as they 
went deeper and deeper into the wilderness, fording in¬ 
numerable streams, and often sinking so deeply into the 
mud that the wagon had to be unloaded before the strug¬ 
gling horses could pull it free. 

At length, late in a memorable afternoon, they drove 
into the little clearing which surrounded the new “country 
home.” And such a home! Only an unchinked log 
frame, with a roof, it is true, but with yawning openings 
where the doors and windows were destined to be, and 
its floor also a “thing of the future.” Without a word, 
the mother crossed the threshold and stood looking around 
her. Then, smitten by the utter desolation of it all, 
and the thoughts of herself and children there alone in 
the wilderness, forty miles from a postoffice, and sur¬ 
rounded by Indians, wolves and wildcats, with her near¬ 
est neighbors six or eight miles away, she sank in a heap 
on the ground, and buried her face in her hands, not sob¬ 
bing, her despair was too deep for that. Her children, 
frightened, stood by not knowing what to do, all their 
pleasure in the cabin, if indeed they had been able to find 
any, swept away by their mother’s collapse. Never be¬ 
fore had they known her to lose courage, and for the 
time being their world was chaos. 

But not for long did they stand helpless. Sensible 
James, young lad though he was, had all the true pio¬ 
neer’s instinct. Rousing his elder sisters, he got them at 
supper preparations, over the great bed of coals which 
he soon had in the wide fireplace, the one comfortable 
feature of the huge, barn-like room. Then, with Anna 
and Harry as his willing helpers, he piled boughs into the 
corners for beds, spread them with blankets, and tacked 


282 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


up more blankets at the doors and windows, as the dusk 
drew close. Filled with the cheery firelight, and appetiz¬ 
ing odor of the steaming food which Eleanor and Mary 
spread upon the table—a broad, rough slab on top of 
two barrels—the room needed only the sound of happy 
voices to make a promise of home. 

But these were stilled; for the mother yet sat silent 
and unseeing. Outside, James had stationed the horses 
close between the cabin and “the schooner/’ and was now 
busy lighting the piles of brush which encircled the small 
clearing. The reason for this was soon made apparent, 
for the howl of wolves and the not-far-distant screech of 
a panther filled the room, and startled little Harry into 
wails of terror. Then, and not till then, did the mother- 
heart rouse. 

“But,” said Anna, writing years later of this awful 
night in the new home, “though my mother took up her 
burden resolutely, her face never afterward lost the deep 
lines those first hours of her pioneer life had cut upon it.” 

And small wonder. Such a host of perplexing prob¬ 
lems as crowded close with the dawn of the new dav! 
Food they had, and a place to cook it and firewood in 
plenty. Water was not so easy, but it could be carried 
from a creek some distance away. Furniture was an 
immediate necessity, and James was soon busy making 
rude bunks, benches, stools and tables. Doors and win¬ 
dows, too, were an imperative need. There was a small 
saw-mill nine miles away, and with the help of “the 
neighbors” and their ox-teams, enough lumber was pres¬ 
ently hauled not only to fill the yawning apertures and 
lay a floor, but to build partitions, dividing the cabin into 
four rooms and an attic. It was too late in the season 
for plowing and planting, but there was plenty of wild 
fruit to be gathered and dried, and Anna and Harry soon 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 283 

became expert fishermen, while later they vied with the 
squirrels in storing away nuts. 

In the Spring, James fell ill and had to go back East, 
and the Shaws would have been in despair, had not Anna 
stepped so confidently into the breach. She and Harry 
planted a garden, and made one hundred and fifty pounds 
of maple sugar and a barrel of syrup. Then the sturdy 
young woman began to dig a well! She finished it, too, 
with a little help from a neighbor boy, and ever afterward 
regarded it as the height of her wilderness triumphs. In 
the meantime there were various encounters with wild 
animals and Indians, which served their full share in 
developing courage and mettle. For the satisfaction of 
her deep longing for knowledge, Anna fell back on the 
copies of the New York Independent, which her father 
sent each month. 

By the time she was fifteen years old, enough settlers 
had arrived to demand a district school, and Anna was 
the first teacher, receiving two dollars a week and the 
privilege of “boarding round.” As this was the first 
school in the township, no appropriations had been made 
for school funds, and it was voted to pay the teacher’s 
salary from the dog tax! Nearly all the school-books 
were Anna’s own meager few. Hymn books and alma¬ 
nacs served the young pupils in lieu of readers. 

In the second year of her teaching, news came that Ft. 
Sumter had been fired on, and that Lincoln had called 
for troops. Almost at once, Anna’s father and her 
brothers, Jack and Tom, who had joined them, marched 
away, and she was left once again as the head of the 
household. Of those bitter years of war there is no need 
to write, for the struggle to keep alive the Shaw home 
in the wilderness was reflected in other homes all over the 
country. Sorrow, too, crept in. Eleanor died, and the 


284 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


sister Mary married and went to Grand Rapids to live. 
But through the monotony of the daily grind, broken 
only by messages from the Front, somehow Anna man¬ 
aged to keep unscathed a determination which had set¬ 
tled strong upon her. Someday she was going to college. 

With the close of the war, and the blessed return of 
father and brothers, the first step toward this ambition 
was realized. Mary had married a successful man; and 
she now offered Anna a home with her, and a chance to 
attend the Grand Rapids High School. Most thankfully 
the girl accepted, and on the evening of the first day she 
poured out her further hopes to the principal, Lucy Stone, 
to whom she was greatly attracted. Nor was her con¬ 
fidence misplaced, for though her communication was 
most astonishing, in that she said she had long felt the 
desire stirring within her to preach, Miss Stone listened 
with perfect equanimity. As she heard of the numerous 
times when the child Anna and later the young back- 
woods teacher had stood upon stumps and harangued the 
unresponsive trees on all manner of subjects, one might 
have thought women preachers were an every-day occur¬ 
rence, instead of an almost unknown quantity. And 
prompt indeed was she to meet the issue. Anna Shaw 
was at once placed in the speaking and debating classes, 
and given every opportunity to test her eloquence. 

Nor was this all. When the young woman had again 
and again proved her undoubted ability, Miss Stone 1 in¬ 
vited her to dinner, and had as a second guest, Dr. Peck, 
the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal church. 
A delightful evening followed, and at its close Dr. Peck 
asked Anna Shaw to preach the quarterly-meeting ser¬ 
mon, at Ashton. 

1 Miss Stone was herself a warm advocate of Women’s Rights, 
and, in 1869, became the founder of the American Woman’s Suffrage 
association. 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


285 

“For a moment,” records Dr. Shaw, in her grippingly 
interesting memoirs, The Story of a Pioneer , “the eartla 
seemed to slip away from my feet. I stared at him in 
utter stupefaction. Then slowly I realized that, incred¬ 
ible as it seemed, the man was in earnest.” 

At first the thing seemed impossible, but Dr. Peck stuck 
to the point, and finally an agreement was made. Six 
weeks intervened before the important day, and it is im¬ 
possible to say how many times that first sermon was 
written and rewritten. Sleeping and waking it was al¬ 
ways before Anna Shaw’s eyes, but she said nothing of 
it to her family or friends until three days before, 
when she confided in her sister Mary. 

Words cannot portray the latter’s dismay, nor the 
prayers and tears with which she strove to prevail upon 
Anna to give up her wild notion of disgracing the family! 
She was powerless, however, to sway her sister’s resolu¬ 
tion, and on the morning of the fateful day the two 
boarded the train together. But Mary sat in the rear of 
the car, as far from her sister as she could get. Her des¬ 
tination was the bosom of her family, and she wept 
throughout the entire journey! 

The text and subject of that first sermon have long 
since been forgotten; but it was listened to by a curious 
eager crowd, who, after the first few words, found them¬ 
selves entirely in sympathy with the young girl, who trem¬ 
bled so violently that the oil shook in a glass lamp on a 
stand at her side, not alone from her natural timidity but 
from the thoughts of the family conclave to which Mary 
had gone. She knew her father, mother, brother, too, 
would disapprove of her course even more than her sister 
had done, and it was hard to go on. She felt that she was 
in all probability alienating herself from her family for¬ 
ever. But the call to preach was strong, and she felt that 
she was right in heeding it; so that, when Dr. Peck came 


286 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


to her commending her effort, and assuring her that the 
sermon had been better than his first one, at the same time 
urging that she go on and preach in the thirty-six ap¬ 
pointments which made up his circuit, she could not refuse. 
Her decision was soon to be sorely tried. Her family 
summoned her to a solemn council; they could not bear 
the course she had set, and if she would give up all 
thoughts of preaching forever, they would send her to col¬ 
lege, and pay the entire expenses of a four years’ course. 
They suggested Ann Arbor, and this was a severe temp¬ 
tation to the college-longing girl. But in the end she 
stood firm. She must heed the voice which urged her to 
preach. 

A sorry, unhappy time it was. Anna Shaw went from 
the family circle with a heavy heart; but though her sister 
Mary’s love and approval were henceforth denied her, 
her home was not, and she continued on in her High 
School course, going out to preach at stated intervals, 
as Dr. Peck desired. Finally the day came when she had 
completed the circuit, and the thirty-six ministers met to 
vote on her application for a license to preach. As yet, 
no woman had been ordained in the Methodist ministry, 
and there was an unusually large attendance at the con¬ 
ference, among them being Anna Shaw’s father who 
came to see how his daughter passed. When the ma¬ 
jority of the ministers present voted on her name by 
joyously raising both hands, Mr. Shaw rose and slipped 
away. Those nearest him said that he looked pleased, 
but no word came to Anna, either of congratulation or 
forgiveness. 

Being a licensed preacher now enabled the young 
woman to enter the Methodist College with free tuition, 
and she prepared at once to take advantage of this. One 
thing troubled her, she had never studied United States 
history, and she feared she could not pass the entrance 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


287 

requirements in this branch. In a chance conversation 
with the president of the institution she betrayed this 
fact, and he invited her into his office, with the purpose, 
Miss Shaw felt later, of kindly breaking the news to her 
that her preparations for college were insufficient. As a 
beginning he began to talk of history, and for some time 
they discussed not only our own country but “the govern¬ 
ments of the world, the causes which led to the influence 
of one nation on another, the philosophical basis of the 
different national movements westward, and the like, 
Miss Shaw drawing upon what she had read long ago in 
the Independent for her share of the conversation. 
When she finally sensed the passing of time and rose to 
go, Dr. Josclyn smilingly detained her, while he filled out 
a card. To her astonishment this proved to be a pass on 
the entire historical course of the college! Their conver¬ 
sation, the president said, had satisfied him of her knowl¬ 
edge on the points required, more fully than a written 
examination could possibly have done. 

Fees from preaching in country churches and school- 
houses, and an occasional five dollars per night for a tem¬ 
perance lecture, kept Miss Shaw’s expenses paid through 
college, and then she went to the Boston University to be¬ 
gin her theological course. She was now twenty-seven 
years old, and had for three years been a licensed 
preacher. Thus far she had worked and studied in a 
community where she was fairly well-known; now she 
was to experience what it meant “to step from a solid 
plank into space.” Grim months were to be hers in 
Boston, months in which she was often to go to bed cold 
and hungry and to wake in the same state, with no hope 
of conditions growing easier. Many times she almost 
lost her faith that it was the Lord’s hand guiding her, 
and came to feel that her mad attempt to secure a uni¬ 
versity degree on nothing was but an “inheritance from 


288 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


her visionary father,” to whom “an acorn was never an 
acorn but a staunch grove of young oaks.” 

She was the only woman in a class of forty-three. 
When the city ministers required help, they invariably 
chose some of the young men. Opportunities to preach 
and lecture were, by her own account, “rarer than fire¬ 
light and food.” Nor was there any hope of help from 
her family, for they had hotly objected to her coming 
away East to live by herself. More than ever she was 
disgracing them! As was inevitable, the day dawned 
when her last money was gone, and only one small box 
of crackers stood between herself and starvation. For 
some time now she had been living on crackers and milk, 
and her courage dwindled as her stock of supplies ebbed. 
Must she give up her career and seek work to support 
herself? At this juncture came an appeal from a local 
minister to help in a week of revival meetings. It seemed 
like a providential straw, and Anna Howard Shaw 
grasped it determinedly. If it yielded enough money 
to replace her shoes, which were bursting at the sides, and 
to feed her for a few days, she would struggle on with her 
theological course. If it did not, she would give up the 
fight. 

Into the effort of the next seven days she put “not 
only her heart and soul, but the last flame of her dying 
vitality.” They had a rousing revival, and somehow 
Anna lived on the excitement and her trembling hopes, 
“mildly aided by the box of biscuits.” Then, the cam¬ 
paign over, weak and trembling, she sank into a chair 
to await her fate from the pastor whom she had assisted. 
It came in a copious, heart-felt flow of thanks. She had 
served the cause most nobly, and had earned at least fifty 
dollars. But alas! notwithstanding the spiritual uplift, 
the collections had been exceedingly small, the good man 
could not give her fifty dollars. Indeed, he could give 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 289 

her nothing at all but his thanks, and again these were 
showered upon her! 

How the poor girl reached the street she never knew. 
Faint and ill with her disappointment and the crushing 
feeling that the Lord had not found her worthy, friend¬ 
less, penniless, all but starving, she stumbled blindly down 
the steps, and at the foot was caught in the arms of a little, 
old woman, who clung to her crying softly. Miss Shaw 
did not know the woman, but it seemed fitting enough to 
be wept over just then. Indeed, she tells us that if all 
the people on the earth had suddenly broken into wailing 
it would have seemed most meet! But the darkest clouds 
have a silvery lining, and Anna Shaw was soon made 
aware that hers were turning inside out. The little 
old lady’s tears were tears of joy! Anna’s arguments 
and prayers had converted a wayward grandson, and as 
a token of her delight and appreciation, the woman pressed 
a bill into the girl’s hand. “It is little enough,” she 
said humbly, “only five dollars. But I want you to have 
it, Miss. I know life is often very hard for young stud¬ 
ents.” 

“It is the biggest gift I ever had in my life!” the girl 
assured her warmly. “Big enough to carry my whole 
future on its back!” 

And she laughed joyously, feeling her whole heart sing¬ 
ing within her. God had not forgotten! He still wanted 
Anna Howard Shaw for His servant, and nothing else 
in all the world mattered! 

The next day another proof came. A woman who 
had an office on the same floor where Anna roomed called 
her inside. A friend had been watching her, she said, 
and she felt sure Anna was overdoing. If she would 
give up her preaching during the school year, and give her 
whole time to her studies and the care of her health, three 
dollars and a half would be paid to her each Saturday 


290 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


night. How gratefully Anna accepted this gift only she 
herself knew; for had not the kind Heavenly Father 
prompted the donor? 

We have not space here to record the facts of the next 
few years, but the corner was turned. In due time Anna 
finished her theological course, and later took a degree 
of medicine at the same university. She held charges 
in various Massachusetts towns, and was the first ordained 
woman to preach in Denmark, Germany, Holland, Sweden 
Hungary, Italy, and Norway. In 1893, Miss Shaw was 
chosen to make the address on Woman’s Day at the 
World’s Fair, Chicago, and then, and not until then, did 
her father, who was present, at last express his apprecia¬ 
tion of “my little Anna.” Full well now the family real¬ 
ized that instead of disgracing them, as they had wailed, 
Anna had made known and honored the name of Shaw. 
When she presently gave up practising both her profes¬ 
sions as minister and doctor of medicine, to enter upon her 
work of prison reform and the causes of temperance and 
woman’s suffrage, she had their hearty approval. But it 
was Susan B. Anthony who finally decided Miss Shaw’s 
vocation. 

“You can’t win two causes at once,” she said. “You 
are merely scattering your energies. Win suffrage for 
women, and the rest will follow.” 

To clinch her argument, she took Anna Shaw with 
her on her Kansas campaign, and thereafter the two 
worked shoulder to shoulder until Miss Anthony’s death, 
eighteen years later. Indeed, so entirely in harmony 
were the two, that often Miss Anthony, whose voice failed 
more and more ? s the years went on, would stop abruptly, 
and signal for Miss Shaw to finish her speech. Calmly 
the latter would rise, complete the broken sentence and 
go on with the line of argument as though it were her 
own! This was all the more remarkable, as neither one 


ANNA HOWARD SHAW 


291 


ever wrote out her speeches. It was Miss Shaw’s custom 
to name her fingers for the points she wanted to make. 

In 1892, she was elected vice-president of the National 
Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1904 she became 
the president, which office she held for more than ten 
years, planning nation-wide campaigns and doing much 
both at home and abroad for the uplift of women and of 
humanity. All her splendid talent was given whole¬ 
heartedly to the cause she served, and she had her re¬ 
ward in the ever-widening triumph of political equality, in 
the increased interest taken in the passage of good laws 
for the home, and above and beyond all, in the foundation 
of the spirit which swept the International Woman Suf¬ 
frage Alliance Congress, which met at Geneva, in June, 
1920. Here delegates from thirty-five countries were 
gathered to celebrate the enfranchisement of the women 
of twenty-two nations, and to outline a campaign to bring 
the remaining outsiders into the fold. And here the 
key-note of the hows and wherefores of this proceeding, 
when summed up, was found to sound the one word— 
Love! the kinship of mother-hearts,—which had always 
been the principal plank in the campaign of the two grand 
pioneers in suffrage—Susan B. Anthony and Anna How¬ 
ard Shaw. 

Miss Shaw passed away, July 2, 1919, leaving behind 
her a life full of struggle, but crowned with victory for 
her cherished aims. 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


“The best-loved woman in America” first saw the light 
of day, September 28, 1839 at Churchville, New York. 
This little babe was to become the woman who, follow¬ 
ing her noble motto, “For God and Home and Native 
Land,” was to bind the White Ribbon of temperance, not 
only across her own beloved United States, but around the 
world as well. Frances Elizabeth she was christened, but 
her brother Oliver and sister Mary called her “Frank.” 

The Willards had both been teachers in the Empire 
State, and their home was a delightful place—“a richly 
nurtured child-garden, where the sturdy small plants 
struck deep root and spread wide leafage to the air, catch¬ 
ing every drop of pure knowledge and every beam of 
home-love falling within its rays.” But when “Frank” 
was still a child they removed to Oberlin, Ohio, where 
the father taught in college. 

Presently the college life at Oberlin was broken by the 
failing of the father’s health. He must get out into the 
free open air, away from all studious pursuits, and the 
physicians strongly recommended a farm home. “Why 
not?” asked the mother, “Saint Courageous,” as Frances 
called her in later years. Big, white prairie schooners, 
headed westward, were a daily occurrence; all the world, 
it seemed, was stirred with the impulsive movement, 
“Westward Ho!” There new homes and fortunes were 
to be carved out, and there the Willards shortly deter¬ 
mined to go. Accordingly, three of the quaint, white- 
hooded vehicles were loaded with such things as the little 

family felt that they could not leave behind. The father 

292 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


293 


led the way. Next came young Oliver, proud indeed of 
his responsibility and the strong, gentle horses he guided. 
While the mother, with her baby girls comfortably pil¬ 
lowed on father’s old-fashioned desk, brought up the rear. 

For three weeks they journeyed steadily, pausing only 
for their Sunday ‘Tests,” which were faithfully kept; 
on through Chicago, “then chiefly notable as a place in 
vast need of improvement,” and away to the northwest, 
until at length the little caravan reached the neighborhood 
of the beautiful Rock River, not far from Janesville, 
Wisconsin. Here, it seemed to both parents, was the 
ideal site for the new home nest—the very spot of their 
dreams! 

Camp was soon made, and here in due time rose the 
home which for twelve happy years sheltered “an idyllic 
life of love and labor, play and study and prayer.” “For¬ 
est Home,” how often Miss Willard loved to picture it: 
“The bluffs, so characteristic of Wisconsin, rose above 
it on the right and left. Groves of oak and hickory were 
on either hand; a miniature forest of evergreens almost 
concealed the cottage from the view of passers-by; the 
Virginia creeper twined at will around the pillars of the 
piazza and over the parlor windows, while its rival, the 
Michigan rose, clambered over the trellis and balustrade 
to the roof. The air was laden with the perfume of 
flowers. Through the thick and luxuriant growth of 
shrubbery were paths which strayed off aimlessly, tempt¬ 
ing the feet of the curious down their mysterious aisles.” 

“At first,” we are told, in Miss Gordon’s “Beautiful 
Life of Frances Willard,” “the visitors were chiefly the 
chipmunks and birds, change of season and turn of day.” 
But these were quite sufficient. No one ever had a dull 
day at Forest Home. There was a wealth of imagina¬ 
tion to season piquantly the hours of work as well as 
those of play. The children organized a club, whose main 


2 94 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


object was, naively set forth by Frances, “to tell what 
great things we have done ourselves, or what Oliver and 
Loren or the Hodge boys have, or Daniel Boone, or any¬ 
body else.” Of the two dogs on the place, “Fred” was 
chosen the “club dog,” but a clause provided “Carlo” as a 
substitute, in this wise: “Once in a while we may take 
Carlo—Carlo can go when he has sense enough.” A wise 
provision truly! And a forerunner of the diplomatic gen¬ 
ius of Frances, who was the recognized leader in nearly all 
their enterprises. She it was who was the editor-in-chief 
of the Forest Flome Weekly, and to her masterly guid¬ 
ance was entrusted the command of the Fort, when a 
great mock Indian raid was in progress, and the mother 
and the two girls sought to hold out against the terrible 
attacks of the wily enemy, consisting of two boys and a 
dog! One piece of strategem here was ever after quoted 
with no little amusement, it was so much the tactics of 
Frances throughout her eminently successful career. 
“Have ready a nice piece of juicy sparerib to entice the 
dog, and so weaken the enemy’s advances!” 

An old oak on the edge of the garden bore this rather 
formidable placard: 

THE eagle’s NEST-BEWARE! 

High in its gnarled and twisted branches was the out¬ 
door study of the “aspiring Frances,” who often perched 
there hours at a time, secure from interruption, and busy 
with the “long, long thoughts of youth.” Here her 
flying pencil set down many a praiseworthy bit of verse, 
and here was written a marvelous novel of adventure, 
some four hundred or more pages in length! 

At first Mrs. Willard was her children’s only teacher, 
but as the little family became more prosperous and the 
neighborhood more established, Mr. Willard fitted up a 
room with desks and benches which he himself had made, 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 295 

and a young lady, fresh from the schools of the East, 
came in daily to teach the little Willards and others of 
the neighborhood children whom the good mother could 
not bear to see growing up without educational ad¬ 
vantages. Delightful times they had here, and much 
solid, careful study as well. Then, when Frances was 
fourteen, a little schoolhouse was built in the woods, 
about a mile distant. Tiny and brown and plain it was, 
“a sort of big ground-nut,” Frances afterward wrote. 
There were pine desks built along the wall, girls on one 
side, boys on the other, as was the custom in those days, 
and “a real live graduate from Yale was the teacher.” 

Happy, happy schooldays! They passed all too quickly. 
By and by, Oliver went away to college, and later Frances 
and Mary became students in the Milwaukee Female 
College, where Mrs. Willard’s youngest sister, the 
beloved “Aunt Sarah,” was the graphic, stimulating Pro¬ 
fessor of History. Here the girls formed a charming 
circle of companions, and here, as she had been in the 
home study and in the district school, “Frank” was soon 
the ring-leader, and so much in harmony with the college 
atmosphere that she was “downright sorry to go home,” 
as she said, at the close of the year. 

Both girls fully expected to return to Milwaukee 
in the Fall, but their father was a staunch Metho¬ 
dist and so decided to send them to his church school, 
located at Evanston, Illinois. Here, again, their charm 
and personality made quick friends, among them being 
Miss Mary Bannister, who was the closest life-long 
“heart-friend” of Frances, and later the wife of her 
brother Oliver. And here again “Frank” was the 
acknowledged leader in all things. During the summer 
vacation of this year, Miss Willard taught her first school, 
in the little “brown nut” schoolhouse, to the extreme satis¬ 
faction of herself and everybody concerned. It was a 


296 FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


period, she often looked back upon with mingled regret 
and pleasure, for it was the last of the happy days at 
Foest Home. In the Fall, a tenant took possession of the 
beloved home, and the family removed to Evanston. 

Changes now came thick and fast. Soon college days 
were over. Frances, in search of a position where she 
“must be alternately the hammer that strikes and the anvil 
that bears,” in order to grow “strong and earnest in 
practice” as she had always been in theory, decided to 
take up teaching as her life work, it being in her opinion 
the best of the few paths then open to women. Her 
father was not at all in favor of this. Fie believed that 
woman’s place was in the home. To the men belonged 
the stern financial battles of life, and he was ready and 
willing to care for his own precious three. 

“But, father,” argued Frances, with all his own spirit, 
“single-handed and alone I should like to try my powers, 
for I have remained in the nest a full-grown bird long 
enough, and too long. It is an anomaly in natural 
history.” 

She was twenty-one years old, and so full of the inde¬ 
pendence she had declared on her eighteenth birthday, 
that now “she did not need to obey any laws but those of 
God thereafter!’ So, though her father argued and ad¬ 
vised, he did not command, and Miss Willard had her 
way. Nearly all the schools were then engaged, but after 
looking carefully about him, the Superintendent of Cook 
County found a teacherless little red schoolhouse away out 
on the plains. Here Frank arrived on that never-to-be- 
forgotten Monday to find a most desolate place indeed, 
with broken windows, dirty floor and benches, walls 
plentifully besprinkled with paper wads, and a group of 
little foreigners heartily engaged in a “free for all.” 

The business of the day began with a chapter from the 
Bible, and the song “I want to be an Angel!” How 



FRANCES E 


WILLARD 





FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


297 

iUiss Willard laughed about it later, but then the occasion 
had anything but an amusing side. The pupils soon 
found, however, that though '‘teacher” could sing and 
pray like a seraph, she could also wield the rod. Order 
emerged out of chaos, and the school presently became a 
fair model. For Miss Willard led here as she had else¬ 
where, and each one of the twenty was her adoring slave. 
Before this happy state came about, however, it is safe to 
say, as Miss Gordon observes, that "the brave young 
spirit got more discipline than her pupils.” The hammer 
blows were swift and sure, but the metal rang true, and 
before Miss Willard gave up Harlem, she and a girl¬ 
friend whom she found in this out-of-the-way corner 
had established a Sunday school in the little old school- 
house. To-day this is represented in a prosperous Metho¬ 
dist church in what is now River Forest, one of the 
charming little suburbs of Chicago. 

More years of teaching followed for Frances, part of 
the time with her dear friend Mary Bannister in the 
public schools of Evanston. Then Oliver, now a full- 
fledged young minister, and Mary Bannister his bride 
went away to their first charge in the far West. The 
sweet young sister Mary died, and other changes followed 
with bewildering rapidity. Both Forest Home and 
Swampscott, the newer house by the lake were sold, and 
the parents went to make a home at Rest Cottage, in 
Evanston. For two year9, Frances kept them company, 
teaching in the Northwestern Female College, from which 
she had graduated. Then a better position was offered 
her in the Pittsburgh Female College, and here Miss Wil¬ 
lard, in the hours that had formerly been given to little 
home duties, wrote her exquisite memoriam of her sister 
Mary, Nineteen Beautiful Years. 

A year in the Grove school at Evanston, a private 
academy for the children of the "best-born,” where Miss 


298 FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 

Willard put into practice her pet theories for student gov¬ 
ernment; three terms at Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at 
Lima, New York, thirty miles from her old birthplace; 
and then Miss Willard received a most delightful sur¬ 
prise. One of her teacher friends, Miss Kate Jackson, 
invited her to go on a two-year tour of Europe, all 
expenses paid. Miss Willard was indeed overwhelmed, 
and hesitated to accept, until Miss Jackson’s father 
added his entreaties to his daughter’s, saying that nothing 
would give him greater pleasure than to pay all bills. He 
had long desired to send his daughter abroad, but until 
then had never found any one to accompany her in whom 
he felt complete confidence. One strong obstacle yet stood 
in the way. Miss Willard’s father had died but a few 
short months before, and she felt that she could not leave 
her mother. When “Saint Courageous” heard of the 
project, however, she was all for it. She delighted in the 
prospect of so much culture and happiness for her child; 
as for herself, she dismissed that matter summarily. She 
would go and stay with Oliver and Mary, who were now 
living at Appleton, Wisconsin. 

For the story of those delightful years abroad, there 
is no place here. Miss Willard came back “with a pic¬ 
ture gallery in her heart” far exceeding the riches which 
crowded the most marvelous galleries of Europe. While 
in her mind surged one burning question: “What can I 
do to better the condition of women everywhere?” 

But for this question the answer was not yet. 

Shortly she was back into the harness again, this time 
at the head of the Evanston College for Ladies, being 
the first woman president of a college in America. Here 
as elsewhere she was successful because she was faithful. 
But teaching, much as she loved the work, was more and 
more becoming an irksome task. To be “tied to a bell 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 299 

rope” was “an asphyxiating process/’ she says, “from 
which I vainly sought escape, changing the spot only to 
keep the pain.” Her pupils could not help loving her, 
she was so lovable, drawing always from a richly-stored 
mind and sparkling with wit and humor. Not one of 
her girls would consciously have done anything to give 
her pain. She believed in them, trusted them, stood by 
them, often in the face of the most discouraging circum¬ 
stances; the shy ones found in her a friend who under¬ 
stood, and she never failed to win them and inspire them 
with confidence. 

All in all, Miss Willard was first an educator. She 
gave fifteen years of her life to teaching, in eleven differ¬ 
ent institutions, in six different towns, in four different 
states. And at the last she left college, not to engage, as 
many suppose, in the new work which was beginning to 
fire her soul, but because a conflict of opinion arose be¬ 
tween her and the new president of Northwestern Uni¬ 
versity over the relation the Woman’s College and the 
University should sustain to each other. In her own 
language the situation was thus explained. “Dr. Fowler 
has the will of a Napoleon, I have the will of a Queen 
Elizabeth; when an immovable meets an indestructible 
object, something has to give way.” Therefore, she gave 
up her position and means of support, deeply grieved, 
because her power and usefulness had, as she felt, been 
curtailed beyond endurance. 

The story of her life since that eventful day, June 13, 
1874, has become common property of the English-speak¬ 
ing people of the world. She had previously had a won¬ 
derful religious experience. After that she longed for a 
more unrestricted field of usefulness. This she found in 
a Crusade which was slowly rising against the terrible 
Dragon which imperiled the earth. Up and down 


300 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


throughout the land this loathsome creature was destroy¬ 
ing thousands of human lives and millions of dollars’ 
worth of property every year. 

Surely if she could succeed in helping to slay this 
Dragon, this loathsome, hideous fiend Strong Drink, she 
would be doing a service as noble as any that had been 
rendered in the thirty or more Crusades that had been 
waged to make the world better! She read everything 
she could find bearing upon the new movement, and pres¬ 
ently her interest in the Crusade drew her to the East to 
confer with its leaders. What she saw in the slums of 
New York filled her heart with pity, and the stimulus of 
the first Gospel Temperance camp meeting, held at Old 
Orchard, Maine, did the rest. Heart and soul she was 
alive to the burning need and righteousness of the Tem¬ 
perance Cause. 

Miss Willard was a born organizer, and she saw 
clearly that what the Women’s Christian Temperance 
Union most needed was a leader, a guiding hand upon the 
reins. Moreover she felt that she was eminently fitted 
to step into the place, and that she could lead the band to 
victory. Only one thing stayed her eager hands: it re¬ 
quired money to be a philanthropist and a reformer, and 
she had so little, that even as she longed to enter the work 
and sat seeing visions of its possibilities, there was in 
the background a fear that if she and her mother re¬ 
mained much longer at that expensive Portland hotel, 
there would not be money enough left to defray their 
homeward expenses! In the emergency, she turned to 
her Bible seeking guidance, and lo! it opened to these 
words: “Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou 
dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” 

But she was not yet fully decided. She wanted, oh! 
how she wanted to dedicate her life utterly to the Cause. 


/ 

FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 301 

Willard prudence—that staunch heritage from her father 
—bade her to be very sure she was right before she went 
ahead. Moreover, her nearest and dearest, even warm¬ 
hearted “Saint Courageous,” who so loved to help others, 
urged against the course they knew she longed to pursue. 

“Temperance workers needs must give their time, 
Frank,” counseled her brother. “You would suffer for 
the very necessaries of life, I fear. Better stick to your 
girls and the higher education, and do what you can in 
your own place. Indeed, it has occurred to me that if 
every one should do his best, each in his own place, the 
Dragon would be short-lived.” 

So it would. But Frank knew this was an idealist’s 
view. It would never be brought about until the crying 
need of such a course was urged from the house-tops! 

Meantime offers of new positions came pouring in, 
the best of these being the offer of Lady Principal in one 
of the most select schools for young women in New 
York City, salary $2400 and her own choice of the sub¬ 
jects she wished to teach. With it, in the same mail, 
came a letter from Chicago, begging Miss Willard to ac¬ 
cept the presidency of that branch of the W. C. T. U. 
“It has come to me as I believe from the Lord,” said the 
writer, “that you ought to be our president.” And the 
die was cast! Forthwith came Frances E. Willard's de¬ 
termination to dedicate her life to the cause of humanity. 
Moreover she set her mark high. She would accept the 
post offered, and urge the blessed appeal to the best that 
was in women everywhere, and together they would wind 
the White Ribbon with its lofty ideals around the 
globe! 

A noble resolution, most nobly carried out! Her sacri¬ 
fices at the beginning were heroic. Many days she went 
without her dinner and walked long distances in Chicago 


3°2 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 


in the prosecution of her work, because she had no money. 
Far and wide sounded her plea to the women of the 
church, the home, and the school to band together— 

“For the cause that lacks assistance, 

For the wrong that needs resistance, 

For the future in the distance, 

And the good that you can do!” 

“Alone we can do little,” she said. “Separated, we 
are the units of weakness; but aggregated we become bat¬ 
teries of power. Agitate, educate, organize—these are 
the deathless watchwords of success. The fingers of the 
hands can do little alone, but correlated into a fist they be¬ 
come formidable. The plank borne here and there by the 
sport of the wave is an image of imbecility, but frame 
a thousand planks of heart of oak into a hull, put in 
your engine with its heart of fire, fit out your ship, and 
it shall cross at a right angle those same waves to the 
port it has purposed to attain. We want all those like- 
minded with us, who would put down the dramshop, 
exalt the house, redeem manhood, and uplift womanhood, 
to join hands with us for organized work according to a 
plan. It took the allied armies to win at Waterloo, and 
the alcohol Napoleon will capitulate to a no less mighty 
army.” 

From the platform of every city of over ten thousand 
inhabitants, and in many smaller places in the Union, her 
eloquent, silvery-toned voice, which was often likened to 
that of the distinguished Wendell Phillips, the prince of 
American orators, urged the call, and those who listened 
never forgot her vivid power and self-possession. More 
than any other speaker, perhaps, she possessed the rare 
gift of firing others with the thought of what they might 
accomplish, and the faith to dare and to do. 


FRANCES ELIZABETH WILLARD 303 

Miss Willard literally wore herself out in her public 
work. She passed away in her fifty-ninth year. Her 
death occurred in New York City, February 18, 1898. 

“She was a conscience aglow with divine light/’ Mr. 
Little said, in the opening sentences of his splendid 
funeral address above her bier, and those words in truth 
most fittingly described the great worker who “made the 
white ribbon God’s olive branch of peace.” 

At her death Miss Willard was the “Best Loved 
Woman in America,” and president of the Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union of the World. Abroad, 
her position as a household guiding star is best revealed 
in the beautiful and pathetic trust of the poor Swedish 
woman, who, lonely and bereaved, somehow made her 
way to this country, and to Willard Hall, “the Temple” of 
the W. C. T. U. in Chicago. “Home!” she breathed 
happily, as she sat herself down and looked delightedly 
around. It was the one English word she knew, but it 
was enough. Where Miss Willard reigned was indeed 
home! 

Two sentences in her Glimpses of Fifty Years give 
us the secret of this peerless woman’s untiring zeal, and 
the inspiration which led her to devote her beautiful, un¬ 
selfish life to humanity. “As I follow in these later years 
the thorny path of a reformer,” she says, “I sometimes 
think how good and pleasant would have been the quiet 
life, so universally approved, of a teacher of girls. But 
confident belief gives me grace and courage to go on, and 
it is this: 


“My bark is wafted to the strand 
By breath divine, 

And on the helm there rests a Hand 
Other than mine.” 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


In her last days Elizabeth Blackwell once observed that 
“no one who was not alive sixty years ago can realize 
the iron wall hemming in on every side any young woman 
who wished to earn her own living, or to do anything 
outside of the narrowest conventional groove. Such a 
woman was simply crushed. Those who were of a char¬ 
acter not to submit without resistance, had to fight for 
their lives, and their fight broke the way through for the 
others to follow.” 

And a battle royal was that waged by Elizabeth Black- 
well! Indeed, the story of her onslaught against the 
walled entrance of prejudice and public opinion forms a 
tale of courage and successful pioneering that has seldom 
been equaled by man or woman. Girls of to-day can but 
read it with mingled wonder, delight and indignation, 
intermixed with a strong feeling of thankful gratitude 
for the wide avenues now open to all manner of oppor¬ 
tunities for women—avenues for which such pioneers as 
Elizabeth Blackwell, Frances Willard, Susan B. Anthony 
and Anna Howard Shaw first blazed the trail. 

Elizabeth Blackwell was born in 1821, and lived the 
first eleven uneventful years of her life in Bristol, 
England. She was the third daughter in a family of 
nine brothers and sisters, and always stoutly maintained 
that it was a great advantage to have been born one of a 
large family group of healthy, active children, surrounded 
by wholesome influences, where goodness, gentleness, and 
reverence were inseparably blended with breezy commons, 
lovely woods, clear streams, and the reading of charming 
books. 


304 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


305 


The father was a sugar-refiner, whom business reverses 
finally sent to America, in August, 1832. The family 
located in New York, and Mr. Blackwell, who had been 
an ardent member of the Independent body at home, soon 
found himself drawn into the anti-slavery struggle. 
William Lloyd Garrison was an especial friend, and al¬ 
ways doubly welcomed by the children in the home, who 
delighted in the numerous tales he told for their benefit, 
and in the long-drawn selections from Russian poetry 
with which he was wont to conclude his entertainment. 

Six years in the seething atmosphere of abolition and 
its free speech and fierce antagonisms, then Mr. Blackwell 
removed his family to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he hoped 
to establish himself in the beet sugar business. But the 
Fates forbade; in a few months he passed away, leaving 
his large family totally unprovided for, and strangers in 
a strange land. It was a crushing blow, this sudden re¬ 
moval of “their earthly Providence,” but stern necessity 
soon roused to action the three elder daughters, of whom 
Elizabeth, then just turned seventeen, was the youngest. 
They had been well educated, by governesses at their home 
in England, and later in a school in New York, and now 
decided to open a day and boarding school for young 
ladies. Uphill business this was, but it kept a roof over 
their heads and the wolf from the door, and served to 
bring on the younger children and keep the home to¬ 
gether until the boys of the family were old enough to 
put their shoulders to the wheel; then the school was 
abandoned, and Elizabeth went to Kentucky to take 
charge of a girl’s district school. 

This was her first contact with the slow-going, slower- 
served Kentuckians of that period, and she did not like 
it. Her disgust began on the first day of her journey, 
when the sleepy-eyed captain put his boat down the river 
at the rate of three miles per hour; it increased at sight 


3°6 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


of the straggling, dingy, uninteresting, dog-overrun 
town of her destination, and “the hole” to which she and 
her trunks were first taken. Indeed, the general easy¬ 
going conditions on every hand well-nigh maddened her. 

“Begin to teach on Monday? This was utterly im¬ 
possible! The idea seemed to them preposterous, the 
schoolhouse was hardly selected, the windows were 
broken, the floor and walls filthy, the plaster fallen off, the 
scholars unnotified of my arrival; no, ’twas impossible, 1 
must wait a week.” 1 

But Elizabeth Blackwell was of no such mind. This 
was her first trip away from home. She felt that she 
would die of homesickness, if she had to wait there inac¬ 
tive for a whole week! So she rose up and argued and 
demanded to such purpose that presently a committee 
of “Responsibles” came to see her, a negro was dispatched 
to mend the windows, and another to clean the floor, and 
there was at least a hope that school might begin on Mon¬ 
day. But Miss Blackwell had yet to learn that slave labor 
could do nothing without supervision. When towards 
evening she went to look at her schoolroom, “nothing had 
been done but mischief. The old negro had flooded the 
muddy floor with water and gone away, leaving the place 
like the bed of the Nile.” It was Saturday night, and 
no hope of getting anything done the next day. School 
could not begin before Tuesday, but begin then it certainly 
should! And Miss Blackwell stuck so firmly to her reso¬ 
lution, that one of the “Responsibles” later told her that 
Monday was an epoch in the history of Henderson! 

As for the school, it was limited to twenty-one pupils, 
but such was the impression Miss Blackwell created that 
she soon had a full roll. “I teach ten hours, three days 
of the week,” she wrote to her sister, “and wish the other 
three were similarly filled; but it is small remuneration 

1 Pioneer Work, by Dr. Blackwell. 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


307 


for such an outlay of breath, and as soon as I have the 
opportunity I shall fly off to some other point of the com¬ 
pass, where I may learn myself while teaching others. 
Carlyle’s name has never even been distantly echoed here, 
Emerson is a perfect stranger, and Channing, I presume, 
would produce a universal fainting-fit.” 

Moreover, Miss Blackwell’s abolition sympathies made 
her more and more intolerant of the domestic conditions. 
“I suppose,” she wrote, “that I see slavery here in its 
mildest form. I have heard of no use being made of the 
whipping-post, nor any instance of downright cruelty. 
(It was really meant as an act of hospitality when they 
placed a little negro girl as a screen between me and the 
fire the other day!) But to live in the midst of beings 
drudging on from earliest morning to latest night, cuffed 
about by every one, scolded.all day long, blamed unjustly, 
and without spirit enough to reply, with no consideration 
in any way for their feelings, with no hope for the future, 
smelling horribly, and as ugly as Satan—to live in their 
midst, utterly unable to help them, is to me dreadful, and 
what I would not do long for any consideration. Mean¬ 
while I treat them civilly, and dispense with their serv¬ 
ices as much as possible, for which I believe the poor 
creatures despise me.” 

Considering, then, all these points of repugnance, it 
speaks considerably for Miss Blackwell’s resolution and 
self-command that she stuck it out to the end of the 
term. But, having once gone home to Walnut Hills, and 
the neighborly atmosphere of the Lane Theological Sem¬ 
inary, conducted by the Beechers and Professor Stowe, 
nothing could have persuaded her to return to Kentucky. 
She was soon engrossed in the study of music and German 
and the friendship of Lucy Stone, who presently became 
the wife of her brother Henry, but who by mutual con¬ 
sent retained her maiden name, a proceeding hitherto 


3°8 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


unheard-of in those times. Perhaps it was the vigorous, 
active life of these two, engrossed heart and soul in the 
crusade for Woman’s Suffrage, that shortly put a wedge 
of dissatisfaction in Elizabeth’s horizon. She was not 
getting enough out of life, she must have some all-absorb¬ 
ing pursuit. 

“You are fond of study, and have health and leisure; 
why not take up medicine?” suggested an invalid friend. 
“If I could be treated by a lady doctor, my worst suffer¬ 
ings would be spared me.” 

A lady doctor! The idea appealed to Miss Blackwell, 
even though at first she thought she had not the spirit for 
it. She had always had a horror of illness, and could 
not bear the sight of a medical book. But, undoubtedly, 
a lady doctor could do a great deal of good. Moreover, 
the struggle to win recognition as such promised no end 
of an interesting fight. It was a good idea, a very good 
idea, said all the physicians to whom she put the query, 
but there were so many obstacles in the way of such a 
course, that it would be impossible of execution. 

“Is that so?” said Miss Blackwell shortly, and being 
just in the mood to begin a crusade of her own, she de¬ 
cided at once to go in and win a doctor’s degree. 

But where was the money to come from? All her 
advisers solemnly warned her as to the expense neces¬ 
sary. She would teach school and hoard the money for 
future use. Diligently she began to cast about for a 
place where she might teach and study. This was found 
at Asheville, North Carolina, where the principal, who 
held a doctor’s degree, agreed to supervise her medical 
studies. And so in sympathy was the family with her 
plans, that two of her brothers volunteered to drive her 
over the mountains to begin her unknown career. Of 
the eleven interesting days of this trip, and of the subse¬ 
quent time spent in Asheville and later in Charleston, 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


309 


carrying out her schedule, there is no place here to record. 
Daily the rightfulness of her purpose grew stronger, and 
she knew that no matter what opposition she encountered, 
she would not give way. 

At length, in the summer of 1847, Miss Blackwell 
felt that the sum of her carefully hoarded earnings would 
admit of a beginning, and she accordingly took passage 
for Philadelphia in a sailing vessel, that city being then 
as now the Mecca for the medical profession. Llere she 
began anatomical studies in a private school, while mak¬ 
ing application one after another to the medical colleges 
for admission. One staunch old Quaker, Doctor War¬ 
rington, was her tireless sponsor. He allowed her to 
visit his patients, attend his lectures, and use his library, 
while he continually recommended her course to the medi¬ 
cal profession; but it was all to no purpose. The col¬ 
leges refused to open their doors; the prejudice against 
a woman intruding herself into the doctors’ ranks was 
too strong, and following this lead museums, hospitals, 
and other sources also turned such a cold shoulder that 
Dr. Warrington exclaimed in despair: “Elizabeth, it 
is of no use trying. Thee cannot gain admission to these 
schools. Thee must go to Paris and don masculine at¬ 
tire to gain the necessary knowledge.” 

Following this advice, the head of one of the largest 
Philadelphia medical colleges, who was wholly in sym¬ 
pathy with her desires, suggested to Miss Blackwell that 
she dress as a man and enter his college, saying that he 
would entrust the secret to two or three of his students in 
whom he had entire confidence, and that a watch would 
be maintained so that she could withdraw if at any time 
her disguise was suspected. 

But Miss Blackwell shrank from entering a medical 
college, either at home or abroad, in any way that was not 
just and true. She had entered on a moral crusade. 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


3io 

Her course must be openly pursued and with entire public 
sanction to accomplish its end. Nor was she to be dis¬ 
suaded from her purpose. 

The schools of Philadelphia were not the only medical 
schools in the United States! She might fare better 
elsewhere. Forthwith Miss Blackwell began writing for 
various prospectuses and getting out applications to all 
the schools which seemed desirable. At length her per¬ 
severance brought its reward. She was admitted to the 
Geneva University, in New York State. And here she 
subsequently became a nine days’ wonder in the town! 
As she walked back and forth to the college, the women 
whom she met invariably stopped and stared at her as 
at a curious animal or hastened on with averted faces, 
feeling that she was either a totally bad woman or an in¬ 
sane one, who might break out at any moment. Behind 
the great doors of the college only did she find peace, 
for the students and the faculty, one and all, accorded 
her the “admirable courtesy of true Christian gentlemen.” 

In due time Miss Blackwell was graduated, one of her 
brothers going on for the express purpose of accompany¬ 
ing her to the church and seeing that she did not feel 
embarrassed and alone. But, though Elizabeth fully ap¬ 
preciated the love and sympathy which prompted him, 
there was now no fear of censure and hostile glances. 
Public opinion had turned. The ladies of Geneva had 
come to the conclusion that Miss Blackwell was pursuing 
a most noble course, and they turned out en masse to see 
the first woman doctor get her diploma, while all over 
the land the press very generally recorded the event, and 
spoke favorably of it. Going shortly afterward to Phila¬ 
delphia, Miss Blackwell was cordially received by the 
learned doctors who had before refused admission to their 
halls, and was freely invited to attend a number of im¬ 
portant lectures and to visit the hospitals. 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 311 

But she was not yet ready to begin the practising of her 
profession, and presently set sail for a tour of European 
study. Here she experienced another battle against 
closed doors, and here, too, she had a serious illness and 
lost an eye, but her purpose remained unchanged. 
Shortly now she was to be the first woman surgeon in the 
world. Everywhere, strange as it now seems, Miss 
Blackwell encountered much stronger opposition from 
women than from men. “Prejudice,” said she once, “is 
more violent the blinder it is!” 

Returning from her studies in Paris, Miss Blackwell 
spent some time in London, doing the rounds of the hos¬ 
pitals, and making a number of friends who helped 
greatly to cheer the somberness of her life. Among the 
most distinguished of these were Faraday, Lady Noel 
Byron, Mrs. Jameson, and Florence Nightingale. To the 
latter Miss Blackwell said that she owed chiefly her 
awakening to the fact that “Sanitation is the supreme goal 
of medicine, its foundation and its crown.” For awhile 
Miss Blackwell entertained serious notions of setting up 
as a practitioner in London. Two things deterred: lack 
of funds, and the fact that her sister Emily had begun a 
medical career, and looked forward to establishing a hos¬ 
pital with her. 

Back in America, with offices in University Place, 
New York, life took on once more the grim guise of 
battle. Few patients came to consult her. The medical 
profession stood aloof and society followed suit. Inso¬ 
lent letters occasionally arrived by post, and as a final 
cap-sheaf poverty hounded close on her heels. To Amer¬ 
ica’s shame be it said, Miss Blackwell’s sole inspiration 
in these dark hours came to her from her English friends 
who sent such warm-hearted encouraging letters of sym¬ 
pathy that, years later, their memory still burned deeply 
enough to draw her back to her native land to await the 


312 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


final summons. How her noble heart bled in secret over 
her lot is recorded in her memoirs: “Ah, I am glad I, 
and not another, have to bear this pioneer work. I under¬ 
stand now why this life has never been lived before. It 
is hard, with no support but a high purpose, to live 
against every species of social opposition.” 

At last in sheer desperation over her loneliness, Miss 
Blackwell went to the city orphan asylum and adopted a 
little girl. This proved to be the most fortunate act of 
her life, so far as her happiness was concerned, for the 
orphan girl, Katherine Barry, proved a treasure indeed. 
All her time was given to a warm-hearted devotion of 
her foster-mother, and moreover their loving example so 
stimulated Miss Blackwell’s two elder sisters, that both 
went and did likewise, and from the physician’s ability of 
Dr. Elizabeth and Dr. Emily to read character and faces, 
both alike drew hearts of purest gold. 

In 1856, the cherished idea of the Blackwell doctors 
took shape in “The New York Infirmary for Women 
and Children.” And it, too, met with such a flood of 
opposition that for a long time its maintenance was a 
severe burden. Bazaars, lectures, concerts, every avail¬ 
able means for collecting money was resorted to, and 
many times it seemed to the few friends that the effort 
would have to be abandoned. But Dr. Elizabeth and 
Dr. Emily refused even to think of this. “They slept 
in the garret, and dined in the cellar,” as the latter said, 
“when they dined at all.” 

At length they triumphed; for everywhere women 
students were beginning to demand enlightenment, and 
there was need for a general hospital where nurses and 
young doctors might be trained. When Lincoln’s call 
for troops fired the North, the Blackwell doctors called a 
meeting to see what could be done toward supplying the 
nurses that they knew would be needed, and from this 


ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 


3i3 


effort grew the National Sanitary Aid Association which 
did such effectual work throughout the war. At its close, 
the Blackwell Infirmary was recognized, on the advice of 
leading New York physicians, and a female college of 
medicine added. Here Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell held the 
chair of hygiene, and among her other duties included the 
work of sanitary visitor in the homes of the poor—a field 
in which she was again the pioneer. 

On the day when her diploma was handed to her at 
Geneva, Elizabeth Blackwell spoke these heartfelt words 
to Dr. Webster, the president, and her valued friend: 
“Sir, I thank you; by the help of the Most High, it shall 
be the effort of my life to shed honor upon your diploma.” 
How nobly her life reflected that promise! Never did 
the college cease to rejoice that she had been a graduate 
of it. Today her name is perpetuated there in the Eliza¬ 
beth Blackwell House. The Blackwell Medical School, 
of Rochester, New York, also does honor to the noble 
woman pioneer whose long years of toil and opposition 
paved the way for the establishment of medical schools 
for women both at home and abroad; her portrait hangs 
in the London School of Medicine for Women. In these 
days when scientific work and studies in medicine are 
available to women everywhere, let none forget at what 
price of courage, perseverance, and fortitude they were 
gained. 

Elizabeth Blackwell lived to the advanced age of eighty- 
nine, quitting her earthly labors in 1910. During the 
long span of her life she was permitted to see many if 
not all of the things for which she had fought, made a 
reality in the lives of all other women who desired to 
do their share of the work of the world. 


HELEN KELLER 


In the little town of Tuscumbia, in the northern part 
of Alabama, June 27, 1880, Helen Keller was born. Her 
father, Arthur H. Keller, a Captain in the Confederate 
Army, was descended from Caspar Keller of Switzerland, 
who settled in Maryland, and on his mother’s side from 
Alexander Spotswood, Colonial Governor of Virginia. 

Helen’s mother, Kate Adams, was descended from 
Benjamin Adams of Newburg, Massachusetts, and is 
a relative of the Everetts from which family came Ed¬ 
ward Everett and Dr. Edward Everett Hale. 

The home called “Ivy Green” because covered by Eng¬ 
lish ivy, was set in a garden of roses, honeysuckles, jessa¬ 
mine, clematis, and all those fragrant flowers familiar to 
anyone who has lived in the South. 

“But the roses,” says Helen Keller in The Story of 
My Life, “they were the loveliest of all. Never have 
I found in the greenhouses of the North, such heart- 
satisfying roses as the climbing roses of my Southern 
home. They used to hang in long festoons from our 
porch, filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted 
by any earthy smell; and in the early morning washed in 
dew, they felt so soft and pure, I could not help wonder¬ 
ing if they did not resemble the asphodels of God’s gar¬ 
den.” 

For nineteen months the baby Helen was a joy to the 
proud parents. She walked when a year old, she could 
speak a few words, and her eager, active infancy gave 
great promise. Then came congestion of the stomach 
and brain, and the light and sound went out forever from 
the little sufferer. 


314 


HELEN KELLER 


3i5 


She was dumb because she could not hear, and the 
few spoken words were soon forgotten. She could feel 
the boxwood hedges in the garden, and by the sense of 
smell could find the first violets and lilies, but she was 
never again to hear the birds sing, nor see the beauties of 
the world about her. 

Several years went by. At five she learned to fold 
and put away the clean clothes when they were brought 
from the laundry, and she could distinguish her own 
from the others. 

With a little colored girl, Martha Washington, the child 
of their cook, and Belle, an old setter, they hunted the eggs 
of the guinea-fowl in the long grass. The horses and the 
cows were a never-ending source of pleasure. 

Dolls, too, helped to pass away the hours, and one, 
which Helen afterward named Nancy, became the especial 
object of her love and of her temper as well. The child 
was restless under the bondage of silence and darkness. 

Finally the grieved mother remembered that in Charles 
Dickens’s American Notes she read of Laura Bridg¬ 
man, deaf and blind, educated by Dr. Samuel Gridley 
Howe of Boston. But he had died ten years before. 

When Helen was six, she was taken by her parents to 
Baltimore to an eminent doctor, but he could do nothing 
for her. He, however, advised Mr. Keller to see Dr. 
Alexander Graham Bell of Washington, who, in turn, 
urged him to write to the Perkins Institution for the 
Blind, in Boston, under the charge of Mr. Anagnos, who 
had married the gifted daughter of Dr. Howe. Mr. 
Keller did so, and a teacher was selected, who reached the 
Keller home March 3, 1887. “The most important day 
I remember in all my life,” wrote Helen Keller after¬ 
ward, “is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield 
Sullivan, came to me.” 

Miss Sullivan entered the Perkins Institution in 1880, 


HELEN KELLER 


316 

the year Helen was born, when she was fourteen years old, 
almost totally blind, but later her sight was partially re¬ 
stored. She graduated in 1886, and was soon ready for 
her important work. 

The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had 
made a doll for Helen, and Laura Bridgman had dressed 
it. When Miss Sullivan gave it to her, she slowly spelled 
the word d-o- 1-1 in her pupil’s hand. The child did not 
know that things had names, but she liked this finger play 
and at once tried to imitate it. Then she ran downstairs, 
held up her hand to her mother and made the letters for 
doll. Later, Miss Sullivan says, she planted the doll 
in the dirt in the garden to have it grow tall like her 
teacher! 

On April 5th, Miss Sullivan spelled in her hand the 
word “water,” letting the water from the pump run over 
her hand. “At once,” says Miss Sullivan, “a new light 
came into her face. She spelled 'water’ several times. 
Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name 
and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly 
turning round she asked for my name. I spelled 
'teacher.’ ” The child was greatly excited and in a few 
hours learned thirty new words. 

Soon after, in the pump-house, she found five little 
puppies with one of the setter dogs, and at once learned 
the words “puppy” and “mother-dog.” In three months 
Helen had learned about three hundred words and many 
common sentences. At the end of August she knew 
six hundred and twenty-five words. 

With rare skill and sympathy Miss Sullivan unfolded 
the child’s bright mind. She made raised maps in clay 
to show her about mountains and rivers. “I built dams 
of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug river-beds, 
all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a 
lesson,” Miss Keller said later. “She is much interested,” 
writes Miss Sullivan, “in some little chickens that are 


HELEN KELLER 


3 l 7 


pecking their way into the world this morning. I let her 
hold a shell in her hand and feel the chicken ‘chip, chip/ 
Her astonishment when she felt the tiny creature inside, 
cannot be put in a letter. The hen was very gentle and 
made no objections to our investigations. Besides the 
chickens we have several other additions to the family, 
two calves, a colt, and a penful of funny little pigs. You 
would be amused to see me hold a squealing pig in my 
arms, while Helen feels it all over and asks countless 
questions. After seeing the chicken come out of the egg, 
she asked, ‘Did baby pig grow in egg?’ She was also 
much interested to learn, ‘who put the chickens in 
eggs ?’ ” 

Helen soon learned to read in raised letters, made foi 
the blind, and also to write. When she received a letter 
she used to read it to Belle, the dog, spelling the sentences 
out on her fingers. When Belle walked away, uninter¬ 
ested, Helen would make her lie down and listen, or watch 
the busy fingers. She wrote later concerning Belle: “I 
made a chain for her neck out of the lovely blue Paulownia 
flowers and covered her with great heart-shaped leaves. 
Dear old Belle, she has long been dreaming among the 
lotus-flowers and poppies of the dog’s paradise.” 

In May, 1888, when she was eight years old, Miss 
Sullivan took Helen to the Perkins Institution in Boston. 
The big rag doll, Nancy, went with them. “She was 
covered with dirt,” said Miss Keller years afterward, “the 
remains of mud pies I had compelled her to eat, although 
she had never shown any special liking for them. The 
laundress at the Perkins Institution secretly carried her 
off to give her a bath. This was too much for poor 
Nancy. When I next saw her, she was a formless heap 
of cotton.” 

Helen was delighted to find that the little blind children 
could talk to her with their hands. “I remember the 
surprise and the pain I felt as I noticed that they placed 


HELEN KELLER 


3i8 

their hands over mine when I talked to them and that they 
read books with their fingers.” 

She learned her first lesson in history at Bunker Hill, 
and climbed the monument, counting the steps. She took 
her first voyage in a steamboat to Plymouth and learned 
about the Pilgrims. The first vacation was spent at Brew¬ 
ster on Cape Cod where the ocean was a constant delight. 
She asked, at once, “Who put salt in the water?” 

In the autumn, Helen and her teacher went back to Ala¬ 
bama, and to her parents’ summer cottage about fourteen 
miles from Tuscumbia, called Fern Quarry. Here she 
rode her pony, which she called Black Beauty as she had 
just read the book, and carried on the studying for which 
her eager mind was always ready. A deep affection had 
grown between teacher and pupil. “Her heart,” said Miss 
Sullivan, “is too full of unselfishness and affection to 
allow a dream of fear or unkindness. She does not real¬ 
ize that one can be anything but kind-hearted and tender.” 
She was distressed one morning to find that one of the 
dogs had a block tied to her collar so that she could not 
run away. So at every opportunity Helen carried the 
block, so that Pearl, the dog, should not have the burden 
of it. A gentleman in Cincinnati said, “I have lived long 
and seen many happy faces, but I have never seen such 
a radiant face as this child’s before to-night.” 

In 1890, when Helen was ten years old, she learned 
to speak. She had long known from the motion of the 
lips and throat that all persons did not use the sign lan¬ 
guage for speech. When one of Laura Bridgman’s 
teachers, after a visit in Norway, told her of a deaf girl 
who could speak, Helen says, “I was on fire with eager¬ 
ness. I would not rest satisfied till my teacher took me 
for advice and assistance. Miss Sarah Fuller, principal 
of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, in Boston, be- 


HELEN KELLER 


3*9 


gan with Helen, March 26, 1890, and gave her eleven 
lessons. She let Helen feel the position of her tongue 
and lips when she made a sound. In an hour, she had 
learned six elements of speech, M. P. A. S. T. I. 

Miss Sullivan and Miss Fuller could understand her, 
“but most people,” she says, “would not have understood 
one word in a hundred. She was often discouraged, but 
she practised constantly.” She talked to her “toys, stones, 
the moon, birds and dumb animals.” 

Her great desire was to speak to her parents when she 
returned to the South. The whole family were at the 
Tuscumbia station to greet her. “My eyes fill with tears, 
now,” writes Miss Keller, “as I think how my mother 
pressed me close to her, speechless and trembling with de¬ 
light, taking in every syllable that I spoke, while little 
Mildred (her sister) seized my free hand and pressed it 
and danced, and my father expressed his pride and affec¬ 
tion in a big silence. It was as if Isaiah’s prophecy had 
been fulfilled in me. ‘The mountains and the hills shall 
break forth before you into singing and all the trees of 
the field shall clap their hands.’ ” 

When Helen was twelve, she wrote a brief account of 
her life for the Youth's Companion. In 1893, when 
she was thirteen, she went to Niagara Falls, and to the 
World’s Fair. At the Falls she “felt the air vibrate and 
the earth tremble.” 

Dr. Alexander Graham Bell went with Helen and Miss 
Sullivan to the World’s Fair. Helen enjoyed everything. 
She had permission to touch the exhibits “and with an 
eagerness as insatiable as that with which Pizarro seized 
the treasures of Peru,” she writes, “I took in the glories 
of the Fair with my fingers.” 

She was fascinated with the French bronzes. She felt 
of the machinery in motion in the Cape of Good Hope 


320 


HELEN KELLER 


exhibit, to see how diamonds were weighed, cut, and pol¬ 
ished. She examined telephones, phonographs, and 
treasures from all the world. 

After this she began to learn Latin, and French, Miss 
Sullivan spelling the teacher’s lessons into Helen’s hand. 
For two years she studied at the Wright-Humason school 
for the Deaf in New York City. Beside lip-reading and 
vocal culture she studied arithmetic, physical geography, 
French and German. “Before the end of the first year,” 
she says, “I read Wilhelm Tell with the greatest delight,” 
but she “regarded arithmetic as a system of pitfalls.” 
She enjoyed Central Park, sailed on the Hudson River 
and walked through “Sleepy Hollow.” 

In October, 1896, the year her father died, she entered 
the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, to prepare for 
Radcliffe College. Such an undertaking seemed mar¬ 
velous for a deaf and blind girl. There were few books 
among the many which she needed, that were in the raised 
type for the blind. Miss Sullivan with great labor and 
patience had to spell into her hand all that the teachers 
said. Mr. Arthur Gilman, the principal, learned the fin¬ 
ger alphabet to aid her in his instruction. 

Miss Keller’s daily themes, examinations, and the like, 
were done by herself on a typewriter which she used 
with great skill. In 1900 Miss Keller had passed, with 
credit, her difficult examinations in advanced Greek, Latin, 
German, Algebra and Geometry, the same as the Flarvard 
examinations, and entered Radcliffe. She was urged by 
Dean Irmin to take a special course, but she wisely de¬ 
termined to follow that taken by others at Harvard 
and Radcliffe, who can both see and hear. 

These were fruitful and wonderful years. Discourage¬ 
ments came, but she said, “I soon recover my buoyancy 
and laugh the discontent out of my heart, for, after all, 
every one who wishes to gain true knowledge must climb 



© 1903 by Whitman 


HELEN KELLER 










HELEN KELLER 


32 1 


the Hill Difficulty alone, and since there is no royal road 
to the summit, I must zigzag it in my own way. I slip 
back many times, I fall, I stand still, I run against the 
edge of hidden obstacles, I lose my temper and find it 
again and keep it better, I trudge on, I gain a little, I feel 
encouraged, I get more eager and climb higher and begin 
to see the widening horizon. Every struggle is a victory. 
One more effort and I reach the luminous cloud, the blue 
depths of the sky, the uplands of my desire.” 

Miss Keller graduated from Radcliffe in 1904. In 
McClures Magazine for June, 1905, in “An Apology for 
going to College,” Miss Keller says: “I discovered that 
darkness and silence might be rich in possibilities, which 
in my turn I might discover to the world. In other words 
I found the treasure of my own island. ... I felt and 
still feel that the demand of the world is not so much for 
scholarship as for service. The world needs men and 
women who are able to work, and work with enthusiasm. 

. . . The idea of college education is not to give mis¬ 
cellaneous instruction, but to disclose to the student his 
highest capacities and teach him how to turn them to 
account. By this ideal, those who labor in darkness are 
brought to see a great light, and those who dwell in silence 
shall give service in obedience to the voice of love.” 

While Miss Keller is a prodigious reader of all the best 
in English, French and German literature, she is exceed¬ 
ingly fond of nature, loves to row and swim, and delights 
in trees and flowers. She lives at Wrentham, Massachu¬ 
setts, with her teacher, and loves the country more than 
the crowded city. “Several times,” she says, “I have 
visited the narrow, dirty streets where the poor live, and 
I grow hot and indignant to think that good people should 
be content to live in fine houses and become strong and 
beautiful, while others are condemned to live in hideous, 
sunless, tenements and grow ugly, withered and cringing. 


322 


HELEN KELLER 


The children who crowd these grimy alleys, half-clad 
and underfed, shrink away from your outstretched hand 
as if from a blow. Dear little creatures, they crouch in 
my heart and haunt me with a constant sense of pain.” 

Miss Keller loves animals, and says: “Whenever it is 
possible, my dog accompanies me on a walk, or ride, or 
sail. I have had many dog friends—huge mastiffs, soft- 
eyed spaniels, wood-wise setters and honest, homely bull 
terriers. At present the lord of my affections is one of 
these bull terriers. . . . My dog friends seem to under¬ 
stand my limitations and always keep close beside me 
when I am alone. I love their affectionate ways and the 
eloquent wag of their tails.” A book concerning Miss 
Keller’s pets would be very interesting reading. 

She has had many distinguished friends, Phillips 
Brooks, who wrote to her beautiful letters about God, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Whittier, Howells, Mark Twain, 
Dr. Edward Everett Hale and many others. 

Before Miss Keller graduated from college, her Story 
of My Life, had been published in 1903, and Optimism 
the same year. She preaches a beautiful gospel of 
cheerfulness. She says: “I have found out that though 
the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet 
the work open to me is endless. The gladdest laborer in 
the vineyard may be a cripple. Even should the others 
outstrip him, yet the vineyards ripen in the sun each year, 
and the full clusters weigh into his hand. Darwin could 
work only half an hour at a time; yet in many diligent 
half hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. 
I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my 
chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though 
they were great and noble. I love the good that others 
do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can 
help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.” 

Miss Keller shows how most of the great men of 


HELEN KELLER 


323 

thought and action have been optimists. “The recognition 
of the right of all men,” she says, “to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness, a spirit of concilation such as 
Burke dreamed of, the willingness on the part of the 
strong to make concessions to the weak, the realization 
that the rights of the employer are bound up in the rights 
of the employed—in these the optimist beholds the signs 
of our times.” 

After graduation from college, what should she do? 
Naturally her thoughts turned towards the blind and how 
to help them. She was made a member of the Massa¬ 
chusetts Commission for the Blind, and served on several 
Advisory Boards for the blind and deaf. This was not 
new work for her. When she was eleven years old, 
through her friends and letters in the newspapers she 
raised $1600 to help educate Tommy Stringer, a poor 
child who became blind and deaf when he was four years 
old. Llis mother was dead and his father too poor to 
take care of him. Helen’s dog, Lioness, had been killed 
and her friends decided to raise money to buy her another 
dog. All such persons she urged to give money for 
Tommy, who was sent to the Perkins Institution in Bos¬ 
ton. When she was twelve, she raised over $2000 for the 
Kindergarten for the Blind by a tea which she gave in 
Boston. 

In the Outlook, April 28, 1906, Miss Keller urged 
that the blind have a chance to be self-supporting, self- 
respecting citizens. She says: “Almost nothing has been 
done for industrial education, which is necessary to alle¬ 
viate the tragic condition of blindness. . . . What the 
blind of America need to open the door of usefulness and 
keep it open, is organized aid and intelligent encourage¬ 
ment. Europe affords good types of such organized aid 
for the blind.” 

After giving reports of work done in Germany, France 


324 


HELEN KELLER 


and Great Britain, agents finding employment for the 
blind after their industrial training, she says: “At the 
Glasgow Asylum for the Blind the average annual sales 
for three years was 29,000 pounds. . . . Not only do the 
women make bedding for the institution, but they have 
secured contracts with shipping firms and other institu¬ 
tions. . . . There is a tea agency in London, the managers 
of which are wholly or partially blind. Hundreds of 
blind agents sell its teas, coffees and cocoas all over Eng¬ 
land. Finally, 85 per cent, of the graduates of the Royal 
Normal College and Academy of Music in London are 
self-supporting. What shall we say when we contrast 
this with the report of the New York Commission for the 
Blind, which finds that only one per cent, of our sightless 
countrymen are in workshops ?” 

Miss Keller receives letters from Texas, South Africa, 
Arizona, Japan, Sweden, India, Germany, England, Spain, 
“from wherever the heart of man is warm and sym¬ 
pathetic, n she says. Some ask to translate her books; 
others wish aid for various good causes. A blind boy 
asks, “How to become a writer?” which she answers in 
World's Work, April 10, 1910. “I believe the only place 
to look for the information you desire is in the biog¬ 
raphies of successful authors. As far as I know, one 
fact is common to them all. In their youth they read 
good books and began writing in a simple way. They 
kept the best models of style before them.” 

Sometimes Miss Keller speaks to audiences, and her 
voice, says Mr. Macy, “is low and pleasant to listen to.” 
She talks to others, but of course can only have com¬ 
munication from them by feeling the motion of their lips, 
or by their making the letters in her hand. Her face has 
great animation, and her heart is as kind as her mind is re¬ 
markable. Charles Dudley Warner says, “When a police¬ 
man shot dead her dog, a dearly loved companion, she 


HELEN KELLER 


3 2 5 


found in her forgiving heart no condemnation for the 
man; she only said, ‘If he had only known what a good 
dog she was, he wouldn’t have shot her.’ ” 

Miss Keller’s book, The World I Live In, was pub¬ 
lished in 1908, the articles having appeared in the Century 
Magazine. It is full of beautiful thoughts, often won¬ 
derfully expressed. “My hand is to me what your hear¬ 
ing and sight are to you,” she says. “The delicate tremble 
of a butterfly’s wings in my hand, the soft petals of 
violets curling in the cool folds of their leaves or lifting 
sweetly out of the meadow grass, the clear, firm outline 
of face and limb, the smooth arch of a horse’s neck and 
the velvety touch of his nose, and a thousand resultant 
combinations which take shape in my mind, constitute 
my world.” 

Again she says: “My fingers are tickled to delight by 
the soft ripple of a baby’s laugh, and find amusement in 
the lusty crow of the barnyard autocrat. Once I had 
a pet rooster that used to perch on my knee and stretch 
his neck and crow. ... In the strength of the human 
hand, too, there is something divine. I am told that the 
glance of a beloved eye thrills one from a distance; but 
there is no distance in the touch of a beloved hand.” 

In the chapter on “The Finer Vibrations,” she says: 
“The thousand soft voices of the earth have truly found 
their way to me—the small rustle in tufts of grass, the 
silky swish of leaves, the buzz of insects, the hum of bees 
in blossoms I have plucked, the flutter of a bird’s wings 
after his bath, and the slender rippling vibration of water 
running over pebbles. Once having been felt, these 
loved voices rustle, buzz, hum, flutter, and ripple in my 
thoughts forever, an undying part of happy memories.” 

Miss Keller’s education has been an untold blessing 
to her. She says: “The only lightless dark is the night 
of ignorance and insensibility. . . . The calamity of the 


326 


HELEN KELLER 


blind is immense, irreparable. But it does not take away 
our share of the things that count—service, friendship, 
humor, imagination, wisdom. . . . While I walk about 
my chamber with unsteady steps, my spirit sweeps sky¬ 
ward on eagle wings and looks out with unquenchable 
vision upon the world of eternal beauty.” 

What a buoyant, beautiful life! and much good Miss 
Keller has done already, and will do in the years to come. 
The Century Magazine well says, “The workings of this 
unique mind are beyond comprehension, but for our¬ 
selves, whatever other qualities it may show, it always 
seems as free as the sky-searching lark, and as elate.” 


THE END 























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